


Up Against Me

by Bubblekilt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Ballet Dancer Lance, Cellist Shiro, Hip-Hop Dance Keith, Human Blades of Marmora, Human Sendak, M/M, Multimedia Wizard Matt, Pianist Allura, human galra, stripper keith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-01-23 17:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12512440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubblekilt/pseuds/Bubblekilt
Summary: Lance and Keith are both dancers at Arus Arts Academy.  Lance is a struggling ballerina, barely stage-confident enough to complete his performance requirement.  Keith is a hip-hop dancer paying tuition by working at a strip club run by the notorious Galra gang.  The All-City Dance Competition offers them both a chance at a scholarship and the chance to perform at the World Dance Exhibition.  There's only one problem--switching styles isn't as easy as it seems.  Pairs dancing offers the chance for the two to get closer than ever...if they can get past each other's walls.(Updates Tuesdays)





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LukaLover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LukaLover/gifts).



> A playlist will be linked soon. Thanks for reading! Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated on 12/12/17 to include song links! I'll be adding these to other chapters as well :)

It was today.

One last day of overpriced lattes and wiping counters and sneaking pastries from Shay’s display case, and then he was free.  It had been slow the last half hour, thank god, and he found himself leaning over the counter staring at the clock.  He’d finished cleaning the machines, swept up the coffee grounds and biscotti wrappers that would keep him here after hours.  The coffee shop was quiet now, lights dimmed and the last stragglers closing up their laptops and heading out into the snow.  Shay was running the totals for the day, and she raised an eyebrow when she saw Lance sprawled halfway over the counter.

“You are eager today.”  It wasn’t a question. She closed the register with a happy ding and Lance jumped, turning to look at her with a sheepish grin.

“Just ready.  They’re unlocking the studio tonight.” 

Shay smiled back as she slid the last few trays into the dish pit, huge earrings swinging as she ducked through to the kitchen.  She wasn’t a dancer, but she held herself like one—it was one of the reasons Lance had decided to work here for the winter.  She and Hunk had kept him sane over winter break, keeping him busy until the arts academy opened again for spring semester.

“Lance?”

He winced, ready for her to ask him to stock the back room or clean the office so he’d stop twitching.  She nodded towards the door. 

“I will close tonight.  Go dance.” 

“Really?”  He couldn’t stop his voice from squeaking a little, and Shay laughed.

“Really—I’ll hear from you soon about the semester, yes?  Do not disappear now that you are back at Arus.  I’ll keep orange scones out for you.”

Lance was already halfway to the door, wrestling with his apron and his coat at the same time.  “I’ll come by for coffee—can’t have too much sugar during the on season.  I’ll keep you posted.”

He had already gotten out into the snow before he remembered to pop his head back inside, wincing at the blast of warm air.

“Shay!”  She stooped to look at him through the kitchen window, wide brown eyes expectant.

“Thanks.”  He bolted before she had a chance to reply, zipping down the stairs outside the café and knocking the icicles off the awning as he went.  His bus card was empty as usual, either he’d forget to refill it or his budget would be blown on groceries and bills and god knew what else.  He’d just count the run to the school as a warm up.  It was freezing, black slush piled next to the sidewalk like walls as he headed towards the gate of the park with cold air burning his lungs.  His legs stretched faster as he broke the edge of the park, already aiming for the opposite corner where Arus’ spires stretched up to hit the skyline.  The gallery tower was like a beacon, still lit with the fairy lights from December recital season. 

_Recital season._ God, campus wasn’t even open yet and he could feel his stomach in his throat.  He’d had his slippers stowed in the bottom of his duffel for two months, practicing before the bookstore opened and after the coffee shop closed—auditions for the semester ballet would be in the second week, and Hunk hadn’t shut up about him making principal dancer this year.  Lance, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure—he’d barely managed to make it on stage last semester.  Professor Montgomery called it beginner’s syndrome.  Hunk called it nerves. 

Lance called it bullshit.

He was going to have to get on stage sooner or later if he wanted to keep his scholarship, and he was hoping just to get a spot in the chorus so he could fill his performance credit and get on with things.  As he ran up the steps, he grimaced at the thought of his other service requirement.

“Ah, Number Three!”  Yep, there he was, bucket and mop already in hand.  Coran wore his janitor badge like a prize, but there wasn’t much that he couldn’t do—he was the school engineer, a part-time orchestra conductor, and Lance’s community service mentor.  Coran was…eccentric, to say the least—he knew nearly everyone in the school by some sort of bizarre nickname.  Lance’s stemmed from the sports jersey he’d been wearing when he met Coran, some hand-me-down number with a chipped three on the back.  Lance had thrown it out soon after, but the name had just sort of stuck.

 “Good to have you back, lad.  Looking forward to another semester of keeping Arus ship-shape?  Together we’ll fight crime and grime, that’s what I say!”  Coran snapped a wet towel like a whip, sending spray all over Lance.  He grimaced at the flecks of dirty water on his shirt.

But the lights in the south studio, _his studio,_ were flicked on and he could practically already feel the stretch of a real barre under his leg instead of a counter, vinyl floors instead of stained linoleum.  The abandon of dancing without looking over his shoulder every three seconds. 

Practicing with a mop after hours was a small price to pay.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow night for our shift.”  Lance shoved past Coran, hopping to pull his sneakers off as he bolted down the hallway.  He’d had his practice clothes on since six this morning, which could have gotten a little gross, but hell, he was just ready to—

He pulled up just short of the door. 

**

There was a dancer in the south studio. One of the hip-hop students, judging by the deep bass that was shaking the mirrors.  The song was turned up so high that Lance could hear the lyrics from outside the practice room, something about sweat and dirty laundry.  The dancer was sweating, all right—it was January but with the way his clothes were soaked it may as well have been June. He was a sharp silhouette against the mirror, the low light cutting the shadow of his hips as he rolled them.  He had a body type like a paper cut, loose clothes hanging off him as he walked.

Nope, that wasn’t a walk, it was a _strut_ —just before he dropped to his knees and started moving like he was…

Oh.  Oh boy.

 He only had two hands, but they were damn near everywhere, twisting and pushing as he rolled across the floor.  He was on his knees, eyes half-lidded as he ran his hands through his hair and back down.  Way down.  Lance charged in while the music was still on, slamming his thumb on the stereo power and cutting off the beat.  The lights came up automatically as he came in, and the dancer turned around like Lance had set off a firecracker in the doorway.

“What the hell?”  His eyes were a violent shade (what color _was_ that?), narrowed with barely restrained fury as he stared Lance down. 

His feet had carried him through the door before he could think about it, but now his mouth wouldn’t work.  “I—um.”

“Um, what?  These rooms are open for student practice—I’m a student.  Do we have a problem?”  There was a rumble to his voice that Lance didn’t like, a growl like a fighting stance coming from this skinny kid in a tank top.  Finally, the words that had jammed in his throat came up in a rush.

“I have this room reserved!”  It came out more forcefully than he’d meant it to, and he saw one of the dancer’s eyebrows quirk in surprise.  “I mean, I’ve had a spot booked for like seven weeks and I have to run my audition piece, I still have to stretch out and finish my choreography and who _knows_ how long that’s going to take. I’ve got work to do tonight—like _actual work—_ and classes at eight AM.  This studio is mine for an hour, and believe me dude, I need this hour.”

“Sorry to intrude,” the dancer snapped, gathering up a duffel and shoving his arms into a sweatshirt that had been puddled on the floor.  “Didn’t realize you owned the place.”

“No, I’m sorry!  It’s just—it’s been a long break.”  Lance went to move forward, to explain, to make the words come out of his mouth the right way, but the dancer was already storming towards the door.

“Yeah, whatever.  Enjoy your session.”  The studio door slammed so hard Lance thought the glass might shatter—and then he was gone.

“Dick.”  The word fell on a quiet room, forceful and pissed and about ten minutes too late.  He strode across the room to pull the curtains across the windows before anyone else could come storming in, but slid as his foot landed on something hard. He stooped to pick up the phone lodged under his shoe—bright red case, screen still queued to some pop song—and shook his head as he realized who it probably belonged to. 

“Of course you left your phone.  Not that you stuck around long enough for me to track you down and give it back.  Here’s an idea: clean up after yourself, _then_ be an asshole.  Messy and rude, they don’t make them like that anymore.  What a charmer.  Jesus.”

The words came so easily now that no one was standing there.  Lance caught a glimpse of himself in the studio mirrors—holding a phone that didn’t belong to him and practically disappearing inside his jacket.  The phone buzzed, and several messages popped up on the lock screen.

shiro: guess you’re gonna be late.

shiro: no worries.  :) 

shiro: dinner plan backfired.  emphasis on fired.  ordering from that garden place—usual?

 Lance couldn’t help but smile at the texts—asshole or not, the guy clearly had someone that cared about him very much.  He tossed the phone towards his bag, shrugging off his jacket and turning to face himself in the mirror.  He’d worry about the dancer and his stupid phone later.  Right now, he was stretching, the studio lights dimmer and the world outside quiet in the snow.  The courtyard was empty, the school dark except for a window far below where Lance could see Coran swiping at the floor and bopping to whatever was playing on his blocky headphones.  He smiled and reached for his toes.

Pulling at the hamstrings, then a backbend.  A split, pulling muscles that had been aching for a good stretch all day.  Breathing through the pull, Lance felt himself pop into alignment for the first time since school let out.  He could breathe in the scent of chalk and window cleaner and sweat, and as he plugged his phone into the sound system he took first position in the center of the room.  His muscles remembered how to do this: it wasn’t tripping through a coffee shop or twitching through multiple choice questions.  This was the opening chord of the Adagio thrumming through his veins and Lance spinning fast enough that the rest of the room really didn’t seem to matter anymore.  Dancing was by nature, not by force.  He could move like water and still land on his feet—he didn’t need to follow a script, he could just _move_ fast enough that the world wouldn’t bother chasing him, his feet could leave the ground and he wouldn’t feel like falling. 

Only alone in a dark dance hall, did falling ever feel like flying.

**

At least today's pissed-off Keith worked out instead of breaking things.  The only problem, Shiro mused as he chewed on a mouthful of rice and broccoli, was that working out meant rock music.  _Loud_ rock music.  He leaned forward over his sheet music, putting his bow down and dishing more takeout onto his plate.

“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”  He didn’t want to push—Keith hadn’t eaten when he got home, just stormed past and headed straight for the exercise pole in the living room.  He was currently upside down, clinging to the pole with his thighs and doing crunches so fast Shiro was worried he might give himself a concussion.  And that was assuming he didn’t make himself deaf with metal music first.

 “I’m fine.”  Keith was gasping, never a good sign.  The last time Shiro had seen him pushing himself this hard, Keith had been coming back from a bad shift at the club, stage makeup still on and glitter smeared over the handprint on his ass. 

Shiro reached over and turned the knob on the stereo so the bass wasn’t shaking the walls.   “Keith, you’re upside down.  You don’t have to stop, just talk to me.”

 “It’s nothing, it was stupid.”

“Come on, you’ve met my best friend.  Stupid is my favorite flavor.”

Keith flopped so that he was hanging just by his locked ankles, face red and eyes narrowed.  “Doesn’t Matt have a genius IQ?”

 “Matt ate nothing but bananas for a week in seventh grade because he thought the potassium would make him conduct electricity.  He microwaves tea with the _bag in_.”

“I microwave tea with the bag in.”  Keith was still short of breath, but he was flipping down from the pole and toweling off his hair so that it stuck up in wild spikes. 

Shiro grinned.  “Exactly.” 

Keith made a face as he pulled a t-shirt over his head.  Grabbing a takeout box, he slumped on to the couch next to his roommate, shoving bull dak into his mouth straight from the carton and looking at Shiro’s scribbled sheet music.  The most recent page was covered in eraser streaks and hatched-out notes, the cello register barely visible beneath all the marking.  The title area was blank, the 5 opening measures the only things fully filled.

“This looks like it’s going well.”

Shiro grimaced.  “Yeah, Harris is going to throttle me if I don’t have something substantial by our next meeting.”

“Which is tomorrow,” Keith reminded him, slurping up a noodle.  “You could always take another semester before graduating.”

“I wish I could.”  Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Dad is still pushing for me to take over after I finish up at Arus.  The only reason I’m still here is being in Alfor’s good graces.”

“You’re here because you’re a prodigy, stupid,” Keith said, shoving at Shiro with his toes.  “Your dad acting like an ass isn’t going to change the fact that you’re the best cellist in the state.”

“I don’t know about all that—“He was blushing now, hand on his neck and Arus sweatshirt puddling around his chest as he shrugged. 

“You could join any symphony in the country with your credentials.  Alfor wasn’t kidding when he offered you the graduate teaching position.  Even if you don’t want to go home for the rest of your life you don’t have to.  You’ve got Matt and Allura.”

“And you,” Shiro gently reminded him, nudging at Keith with his thigh. 

“And me.”

“Speaking of you…” Shiro said, scooting closer.  “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“It was stupid.”  Keith repeated.  He pushed his nose deeper into the carton of food, his eyes watering at the spicy smell.  Shiro waited.

“There was a guy when I went to practice my routine tonight—he just barged in and demanded the place.”

“Did he actually demand it?”  Shiro knew Keith had a quick temper, but coming up against something like that would have left him cowed—and he wasn’t that great at reading social cues even when he wasn’t angry.

“He was going on about how he had reserved _that_ studio, and he walked in on the middle of my routine for the club with this sneer on his face and started talking about how he had _actual work_ to do.”

“You really think he knew that you work at a strip club?”  Shiro’s voice was light, but he knew how careful Keith was in regards to his work.  Getting mixed in with the Galra owners was bad enough, and the only reason Shiro had even found out about his roommate’s job was Keith’s laundry getting mixed in with his.

Keith shoved his nose farther into the carton.  “Maybe not.  I just—what if he did?  No one’s going to take me seriously at Arus if they find out how I pay my tuition.”

“The proof isn’t in the pedigree, buddy.  I doubt he knew anything—did he look familiar?”

When Keith finally spoke again it was around a mouthful of noodles, sullen.  “No.”

“You’re going to be fine.  The tuition problem might even work itself out.”  Digging through his music folder, Shiro pulled out a flyer.  The Arus sigil was splattered across the top, the silhouettes of several dance styles the background to a bright headline announcing the All-City Dance Competition.  The grand prize was a two-year scholarship.  The only problem?

“It’s a pairs competition.”  Keith’s voice was flat.

“That’s the catch.” Shiro acknowledged, leaning back against the couch.  “But if you’re comfortable trying, this could set you up for the entire rest of your school career—even after I leave.”

At the mention of him leaving, Keith’s eyes narrowed again.  He folded the flyer neatly in half and put it on the table, shoving himself to his feet.

“I’ll think about it.  I have to get ready for work.”

He disappeared into his bedroom, headphones already in and blasting whatever song was going to make him deaf this time around.  Shiro sighed.

They’d get through this semester in one piece.

They had to.


	2. Transposition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, Halloween festivities got the better of me. Hope you enjoy this week's chapter!

There were different types of morning people.  Arus Academy had seen them all—first Coran, singing his way through the halls and throwing the balcony curtains open to the sounds of car horns and the sting of cold air.  There was Alfor in the headmaster’s office, working his way through a cup of tea and an Etta James record before the school doors opened once again.  Later would come the students—Keith in yesterday’s pants, scrubbing glitter from his hair and drinking his third cup of coffee; Lance and Hunk chattering over the EDM blasting from Pidge’s headphones—but as Allura wandered the halls she breathed in the quiet.

It would be the last time she walked the halls like this, in the early hours before the semester began.  She relished in the sound of her own shoes, of Coran yowling the notes to a disco song somewhere in the upper corridors, of the faint noise of cello music coming from the concert hall.

She knew those notes.  Better yet, she could guess who was playing them.  Cracking the door to the hall, she looked to the stage where a familiar form sat.  Shiro was working his way through one of Bach’s cello suites, the G Major Courante singing from the strings and echoing through the hall.  She snuck in quietly, walking towards the front of the stage as he continued. 

His eyes were closed, the cello planted firmly against him like an old friend.  He pulled the bow in short strokes as the piece increased in tempo, a line forming between his brows as he stretched to hit a low note.  Shiro’s whole body moved with the piece, jumping and sliding as he bounced from low to high and back again.  He looked suspended when he played like this—the auditorium could collapse around his ears and he probably wouldn’t notice.  The piece flew between his fingers, a conversation only he could hear, and as he struck the final note there was a pause.  Allura let the echo in the hall fade before she stepped forward to applaud.

Shiro jumped, his eyes snapping open and his cheeks going red.

 “Good morning,” he managed.  She pulled herself up onto the stage, uniform tie swinging.

“You do realize you don’t always have to be the first one here?”  The question was pointed and half joking, but Shiro’s ears went redder anyway. 

“Just warming up.  I think Coran was poking around earlier, but he left pretty quick.”

“He knows you come in here to think—he’s not the kind to interrupt someone while they’re puzzling out existence.”

Shiro only nodded, his usual sarcasm quiet as he screwed his bow back into rest position.  Allura sat down on the edge of the stage, legs crossed as she watched him lay his cello in the case.  He played in the hall when things were bothering him—something about the way the sound moved—and from the way he was slumping in his seat he wasn’t too happy about whatever it was. 

Allura scooted forward, chin on her fists.  “Care to share?  I know Matt is usually the…what does he call it?”

Shiro laughed.  “The Oprah.”

“Yes.  Matt is the Oprah, but seeing as he won’t be here for another few hours I do have two lovely ears.  Come on, out with it. Tell me your troubles and woes.”

At least that got a smile.  Shiro leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back legs as he looked up at the stage lights.  “It’s Keith.”

Allura hummed.  It was usually Keith—more often than not, Shiro worried over him like a mother hen.  He wasn’t eating, he was working too hard, his boss had done something to upset him, his latest biology quiz had been something of a bomb, on and on the list went.  But this time Shiro looked as if the problem couldn’t be fixed by all the Oprah sessions in the world. 

“He’s avoiding me and he thinks I don’t notice.  I think it’s because we’re graduating.  He’s spending more time at work than ever and every time I try to talk about it he changes the subject.  I only pinned him down last night for dinner before he ran off again.”

“At least he’s eating,” Allura mused.  Shiro nodded, looking distracted.

“I don’t know how to convince him that I’m not going to disappear from his life the second I get my diploma.  It’s like I’m Mary Poppins or something.”

Allura’s eyebrows crinkled.  She’d had a sheltered childhood, her pop culture knowledge coming mostly from Matt’s references and Shiro’s insistence on Star Trek marathons.  Seeing her confusion, Shiro sighed.

“Never mind, it’s not important—anyway, I’m all he’s got.  You know he’s had it rough, and I’m not sure that me leaving to work for my Dad is the best decision right now.  Especially if his solution to being alone is spending all his time working.”

Shiro hated Keith’s job.  He’d never go farther than that when pushed, but Allura got the feeling that Keith spending more time at work meant he’d end up worse off than before. 

“Does he have any friends?” 

“None that would admit to it.  I was trying to get him to join the All-City competition, maybe get himself out there a little bit, but he shut it down the second he saw the word ‘pairs’. 

   “What, are we pairing off already?  Shiro, you dog!  I was promised a dance!”  Matt’s voice echoed too loudly in the hall, but then again everything about him was loud.  ‘A little much’ could have been the title of his autobiography.  He clambered up on the stage, trying to balance a coffee carrier alongside his laptop bag and dangling headphones.  There was a beanie perched atop his head like a beret, hair puffing out underneath it and glasses askew. “I come bearing gifts.” 

He handed off a chai latte to Shiro, who wrinkled his nose at the smell of Matt’s espresso monstrosity.  “Those things will kill you, you know.” 

Matt only grinned and pushed the last cup in the carrier towards Allura, who inhaled deeply.  Green tea with just a hint of honey, the way she liked it.  Matt plunked down, his own cup almost sloshing all over the stage.

        “No offense, but at this point I’m counting on it.  It’s the only way I’ll get out of having to submit my senior proposal.”

      Both Shiro and Allura groaned.  Matt scooted forward, doing his best not to upend his coffee on Shiro’s cello case.  He squinted at Shiro’s face, making the cellist pull back awkwardly.

       “What?”  Shiro asked, already looking guilty.

       “Don’t tell me you’re moping already!  Graduating is supposed to be a good thing—your duckling is going to be okay.”

       “I’m not moping.” 

    Matt raised a pointed eyebrow, looking around the stage and raising his arms.  “And you just happen to be in your thinking spot, playing sad music, the morning of your last first day.”

   “To be fair, he was playing the Courante,” Allura added helpfully. 

   “Not sad, then.  Nervous.  Mixing it up, huh?  No C Minor Sarabande?”  At the sight of Shiro’s heavy blush, Matt laughed.  “Takashi, you’re predictable as hell.  You can’t hide anything from us, and even if you tried—you’re an open book.  Your kiddo is going to do just fine on his own.  Even if he needs time to figure himself out, we have a whole semester to convince him that there’s life outside.”

   “Hear, hear,” Allura raised her tea, gesturing for Matt to do the same.  “To the last semester!”

   “To life outside,” Matt added, taking a big swig of his coffee and pulling a face.  Shiro took a sip of his own drink, looking out at the velvet red of the hall behind his friends.  _To life outside._

**

   “Interdisciplinary dancing can be an art form.  Done improperly, it is an eyesore—and there are some who would argue that styles of dance exist separately for a reason.  This might make sense in a cultural context, excluding the fact that we now live in a world of constant artistic bleed-over.  Globalization is rapidly expanding what we once thought possible in terms of art and style—but what does this mean for traditional forms?”

  Silence from the group of second years in the lecture hall.  Professor Montgomery raised an eyebrow, scanning the room.

   “Anyone?”  Slowly, in the second row, a hand went up.  Timid, but she’d take it—and she knew the grinning face it was attached to.  She adjusted her glasses, pinning him with a level gaze.

   “Mr. McClain, glad to see you gracing my classroom again.”

   Lance cleared his throat, eyes darting from side to side before he sat forward.  “There are a lot of ways traditional art forms are being kept alive—forms like ballet have specific skills that have to be developed before there’s any variation at all.  It can come down to individual opinion, but I think that mixing styles can be an opportunity to improve individual styles.”

    “Who says they need improving?”  Another voice, this time from the back.  Surly.  A glance revealed a slumped figure in a hoodie in the sixth row, surrounded by edgeways looks from his seatmates.  The professor bit back a smile.  There was the rub—someone willing to argue.

      “Yes, Mr.—?”

     “Keith.”  There was a smattering of giggles at his misunderstanding of the question, but he merely narrowed his eyes and sat up straight.

    “What if the forms are better when left on their own?  Who are we to say whether or not they fit the standards of a particular style when they’re based on a form that’s completely different from our knowledge?”

   Lance looked affronted.  “I’m not saying that we have to impose styles on top of each other in order to make them better in terms of a whole discipline—I’m saying it can be a good thing to add a little bit of _spice_ to a routine.” 

  He shimmied his shoulders for emphasis, making the class laugh, but Keith’s expression soured.  “Traditional styles are a part of culture all around the world, and you want to use them as embellishment?”

  She decided to jump in before the discussion could get too heated.  “I think what Lance is attempting to say is that those traditional dances can lend to our knowledge of the bigger picture in dance—observing the similarities and differences in how movement occurs across cultures can inform us when we attempt to convey our art.  And that is precisely what this class is all about.  Cross-cultural movement: how it happens, why it happens, and what happens when styles collide.”

   There were five minutes left on the clock, but she could already hear the shuffle of students packing up.  It was only the first day, after all—and she needed to speak with someone.  Two someones, it seemed.

  “Lance, Keith, please meet me outside my office.  Everyone else, I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

**

    He couldn’t hold still.  Lance was trying hard to keep from bouncing, but his toes had other ideas.  Keith had been in there for fifteen minutes, doing who knows what—but with a click of the door lock he emerged, looking Lance up and down with distaste before stalking off down the hallway.

        “Mr. McClain?”  The professor’s voice was light, but she sounded strained.  “You may come in.”

        He stepped over the threshold, breathing in the scent of mahogany and coffee—it reminded him of Shay.  Professor Montgomery sat behind her huge desk, hands steepled like some old cartoon villain.  The awards on the walls were intimidating enough—as Lance sat down he eyed the shelf of trophies with awe.

       “Are those all yours?” 

      “No, they’re on loan from a local museum—I convinced them to allow me the Nationals medal for a hefty fee.”  She was joking.  That didn’t make them any less intimidating.  “I don’t mean to show off—I’m moving at the moment and this is a temporary holding pen for my things.”

     “I’m glad you asked me in here, anyway.  I’ve been meaning to talk to you about my audition piece.  I know last semester wasn’t a banner performing year but I know I have to pull a spot on stage this year for my scholarship requirement.”

       “Lance, that’s actually why I invited you here in the first place.”  Her face wasn’t pulling back in a joking grin, but rather getting more serious.

        “What?”

   “There may not be an audition for you this semester.”  She looked guilty, but Lance could only stare in slack-jawed disbelief.

  “The school has been facing some budget cuts recently, and as your advisor I wanted to tell you that your grant may not cover your tuition with some of the increases the school board has been talking about.”

   Lance felt like there was a balloon in his chest—squeezing so that all the air whooshed out of him in fits and spurts.  “Wha—how?  How have they not told anyone about this?” 

  “The board is still attempting to find solutions, but things don’t look incredibly bright at the moment.  I, however, went looking for some solutions on my own.”

   She pulled out a flyer, one of the neon-splattered monsters advertising the All-City competition that Arus held every year.  She pushed the flyer toward him.  “It offers a full-ride scholarship for the winner, and you’d be able to perform at the Exhibition in the spring without an audition.”

     Lance stared down at the flyer, squinting to read the fine print.  “So they’d accept ballet?”

    The professor grimaced.  “There’s the catch.  The judges are looking for pairs that are interested in mixing dance styles—switching them, in some cases.”

    “But I don’t have a partner.” 

There was the eyebrow again, waiting for him to realize—oh.  “No.”

“Keith’s reputation precedes him.  I understand the two of you may not know each other very well, but—“

“He’s an asshole!”  Lance said, pushing his chair back.  “I can’t work with him, he’d eat me alive!  I’m pretty sure he’d rather fling himself out a window than arabesque, and I’ve only met him once.  He hates my guts.”

“In this case, I’m afraid it’s pairs or nothing.  Wouldn’t you like to support your theory of adding a little _spice?_ ” 

Trying not to look irritated at having his words thrown back in his face, Lance looked back at the trophies on the wall, the worn pairs of toe shoes stacked on top the bookcase.  “What would you do?”

“I’d consider it quite seriously,” she said, her voice careful.  “You’re a wonderful dancer, Lance—I’d hate to see you throw that away because of a petty rivalry.”

“Petty is my trademark,” he joked, but her expression didn’t change.  Damn, she was pulling the guilt card.  And it was working.  Sighing, Lance took the flyer and stood, shouldering his bag while the professor looked on expectantly.

“Think about it?”  she prodded.  He nodded, heart in his throat, but they both knew the decision was basically already made.

This was going to suck.

**

“I’ve never seen you this worked up about a crush before,” Shiro teased.

“It’s not a crush!”  Keith could feel his face heating, and he stuffed another clump of taco salad into his mouth so he could focus on chewing instead of being pissed.  Unfortunately, his voice was loud enough to draw the attention of several waiters nearby.  Shiro grinned (the bastard) and went back to stirring his mangled enchilada.

“They’ll kick me out if I don’t win this,” Keith said, his voice quiet under the clatter of dishes from the restaurant kitchen.  “I have to dance, Shiro.  It’s all I’ve got.”

“Hey.”  A hand came down on the fist holding the fork, the hand that was already starting to shake.  “Not all.  You dance like nothing I’ve ever seen—if Arus can’t see that talent then they don’t deserve you.”

“You have to say that, you’re my roommate.”

Shiro put a hand to his chest, mock-offended.  “I am honor-bound to tell you the truth.  For example, you have guacamole all over your chin.’

While Keith hastily scrubbed at his face with a crumpled napkin, Shiro leaned back again.  “Listen, I’m not saying you have to love the style or even your partner—but if you don’t try something then you’ve already lost.”

Keith tried to keep his sour expression, but there was something underneath it now as Shiro waited for him to respond.  He only seemed to be mock-annoyed now, his lack of guacamole beard making him look much more serious.  He opened his mouth to shoot back a retort, but froze as his phone started buzzing on the table.  Without looking down, Shiro knew who it was—there were only two people who ever called Keith’s phone, and one of them was him.  Keith paled, swiping the call and getting up.

“I should take this—they probably need me to cover for someone.”  He left his wallet on the table—a sure sign he’d be back eventually—but as he walked away Shiro’s stomach curled around the warm Mexican food he’d wolfed down earlier.  Keith’s future in dancing wasn’t on some pole on the West Side.  Shiro just had to make him believe it.

**

“—and then she looked at me all, ‘oh Lance, you’re being petty and you’re going to lose your future’.”

Pidge looked up from where she sat cross legged in a pile of silk skirts, surrounded by mixing equipment.  “To be fair, you are being petty.”

 “Whose side are you _on?_ ” Lance demanded, sliding off the counter where he was sitting and going to lean on Hunk’s shoulder dramatically.  “Hunk, Pidge is being realistic again.  Make her stop.”

     Hunk sighed gustily, taking a break from sewing the line of sequins on to his latest project.  His job as a seamstress wouldn’t really kick up until recital season began, but he was keeping in practice by sewing one of his designs as a portfolio project—like the fabulous student he was, Hunk kept busy even when he didn’t need to.  Hence the entire group hanging out in the costume attic.  Lance kind of liked it up here—the heat from the theatre rose and made everything nice and cozy, and there were racks and racks of old show costumes in all sorts of colors and textures.  He just liked to run his hands through, to feel the satin and itchy tulle and poking beads.  Teals and pinks and bright yellows all mixed together up here, so that looking over the racks felt like peeking into to some washed-out psychedelic painting. 

  “Would it really be so awful?  You know that grant is barely keeping you here—wouldn’t it be nice to go your last two years without having to worry about how you’re going to pay for the next semester?  I know you like working with Shay, but you wouldn’t have to bust your ass the way you usually do.  It might be a nice change, if you win.”

    Pidge put her laptop down and took both earbuds out—a sign of serious business.  “Statistically, performing at the spring exhibition would increase your chances of signing with a company after graduation.  This isn’t just about dancing with some asshole who took your practice room, it’s about securing your career too.  Besides, I worked with Keith in a multimedia seminar last semester—he didn’t seem too bad.”

   “Traitor!”  Lance howled, clutching a hand to his chest.  Unfortunately, he knew that no amount of dramatics was going to save his dignity once he was alone in a studio with _Keith,_ of all people.  Seeing his distress, Hunk offered him a pat on the back.

  “Think of it this way—you get to show him a thing or two, right?  He’s not just going to be telling you what to do, you get to teach him all about ballet.  It’s like an exchange program!  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll like it.”

   He was a damned man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued! Next week we'll see the first collaboration between Keith and Lance and get to meet the Galra gang...stay tuned for sarcasm and a strip club ;)


	3. Counterpoint

Night magic.  That’s what Lance’s mother used to call it.    

  He’d hung out in her classroom after hours for years when he was still in the lower grades, and he’d wander the hallways of the high school while he waited for her to finish meetings or grade papers.  He liked to explore the school when it was dark, moving in echoing hallways and the gymnasium that always felt like it could swallow him whole.  The theater with its swathes of curtains and lone stage light—Lance used to practice there after finishing his homework. There was something freeing about being alone in such a big space, something that made him feel like he was in a film.  Of course, Mom had felt it too.  She liked watching from the back of the auditorium where she thought Lance couldn’t see her.  It was time that was sacred, just the two of them in that big empty school, until the car ride home ended with Alex sweaty from soccer practice and Emily and her twelve friends piling into the backseat chattering about math team or their latest robotics project.  Then it would be home for a loud dinner with all his older brothers fighting over who got the last scoop of rice and the younger kids fighting over the remote afterwards and all of them fighting over who _really_ did dishes the night before.  It was loud and messy, nothing like the empty blue hallways at the school.

  Arus was dark, but it still felt _full,_ somehow.  Coran had assigned him the upper hallways, and Lance was flitting from classroom to classroom to empty the recycling bins.  The lecture halls felt like caverns, the podiums and balcony seats clean and even in the dark.  It wasn’t lonely the way most places felt when they were empty—Arus was waiting patiently to be alive again.  Just holding its breath. 

  At this hour, he and Coran were the only ones around.  They had started cleaning a few hours earlier, just sweeping up and generally making sure all the downstairs classrooms were in working order.  There was the usual pile of coffee cups and food wrappers scattered around the caf, but Coran had just asked Lance to do a final walk-through upstairs while he took out the garbage.  Up here, it was just professor’s offices and practice rooms.  The dance studios would have to be cleaned tomorrow—there were barre fingerprints on the mirrors already after a full day of abuse.  The lights were still on in one of them, spilling out into the hallway, but as Lance went to turn them off his stomach seized at the sight of a familiar face.

  Keith wasn’t looking at him.  He wasn’t looking at anything, really.  The way he was dancing was completely different than it had been the last routine Lance had seen—this was softer, the edges more rounded as he popped across the dance floor in a smooth motion.  The beat was still heavy around him, but the song didn’t ring the same way the tune about slow hands did.  It was sad, the lyrics dragging through a range of auto-tune and thick piano chords. 

  It was like ballet, he realized.  Very edgy hipster ballet, but ballet nonetheless.  Keith’s hands moved like he was dancing with someone only he could see, spinning as if he was trying not to step through holes in the floor.  It reminded him of the way the Miller’s Wife danced her solo in _Le Tricorne_ , like something stuck in a cage.  Keith was weaving between invisible bars when he danced, but he wasn’t like a bird—every line of him looked tight, ready to spring at anything that got too close.  Worst of all, he was _good_.  Lance hated the guy but he could have watched him move forever.  Most freestyle had the potential to look messy, but even just making up whatever he was doing Keith was all clean lines and pointed toes.  He bent back and flipped forward, practically floating around the fucking dance floor to a song that spoke of something that someone desperately wanted. 

  Much as he hated to say it, the guy had _presence_.  Something Lance was desperately trying to get on stage.  Outside performance he could flirt and bicker comfortably with anything that breathed, but up on stage he was too stuck inside his own head to focus on doing much other than not falling on his face.  Lance decided to move past quietly, not wanting Keith to see him staring.  He hurried down the hallway towards where Coran would be waiting to lock up.

  This might be worse than he thought.

**

  Sometimes Keith swore he could feel the caffeine running in his veins. 

  It had been a shitty day—he had ditched the two essays he left to finish in favor of a workout with Shiro at six in the morning.  He’d paid for it anyway by rolling his ankle during a sparring bout, but he’d shaken it off to keep Shiro from worrying.  At the beginning of the day it had seemed like a brilliant idea, but after eight hours limping around Arus Keith was just ready to crash headfirst into bed.  His shift tonight started at nine, but he’d be lucky to even catch a mouthful of dinner after rushing through homework.  Even with that, he’d probably be late to the club.  Again.  He wanted to text Thace, but unfortunately, for another hour he’d was stuck dealing with—

“Hey, mullet!”

  Keith gritted his teeth together so hard he thought they might crack.  Lance skidded to a halt next to him, all elbows and angles.  His ballet bag was slung casually over one shoulder, hands stuffed into his pockets.  He looked calm on the outside, but something about it was…off.  Whatever it was, Lance was smiling a _lot_.  To be honest, it was kind of freaking him out.   Keith took another swig of coffee, grimacing as the heat hit the back of his throat.

“Hi,” he grumbled.

“You ready for this?” Lance rubbed his hands together, hopping excitedly from foot to foot as they approached the studio.  Montgomery was already inside, adjusting the stereo and moving one of the practice barres to the center of the room, checking her watch.  Even as they went inside, Lance was practically vibrating (with excitement? nerves? who knew?), shooting glances at Keith over his shoulder.

  His foot hurt.  He could feel his hands staring to quake from the caffeine high, and he was doing his best to ignore the vibrating phone in his pocket.  He supressed a gusty sigh.

This was going to be the longest hour of his life.

**

  Lance wanted to hate him.  He really did.

  But he just made it look so _easy._ He’d taken Hunk’s advice coming in, all smiles and rainbows even as Keith gave one word answers and drank his bitter old-man coffee like he was swigging whiskey.  They’d started off teaching Keith basic footwork, working through positions.  Lance would have been satisfied if he’d at least tripped a few times, but Keith ran through beginner’s exercises like he was busy thinking about something else.  He looked damn near _bored,_ following Professor Montgomery’s instructions to the letter as they ran through warm ups.  They had decided to focus on ballet for the first half, but Lance was dreading getting to the hip-hop portion of the class.  Professor Montgomery had explained the approach to the two of them as they were warming up, running through stretches with all the grace of an ex-prima ballerina.

  “The point of these first few practices is just to get you comfortable with each other’s styles.  You won’t be experts, of course, but the idea is to fuse the styles comfortably.  As we get closer to competition time, you’ll each be asked to come up with a dance predominately in the other’s style, and then you’ll come up with a fusion piece together.  We have six months before the exhibition, and I expect every effort from both of you—as your sponsor for the competition, I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.”

  She had raised her eyebrows at both of them then, a subtle threat of steel under her leggings and slick ponytail.  “I realize that there may have been some hostilities between you in the past—but if you are going to win this competition and stay at Arus, you’re going to have to work together.”

  Here they were, halfway through a session, and they had barely spoken more than a few sentences to each other.  But that was about to go out the window.

  “All right!”  Professor Montgomery clapped her hands together, the stereo switching to a song about Havana.  “Keith, I’ll let you take over the teaching for a moment—would you be willing to go over basics with Lance?”

  Keith nodded, lips pressed tight.  Lance resisted the urge to scowl at his professor, his supposed mentor sending him into the snake pit without a hint of mercy. 

  The song was a looping beat with lots of clapping and yells—Lance remembered hearing it on the radio, but as Keith moved towards him he lost the ability to focus on the lyrics.  Because Keith’s default dancing expression seemed to be bedroom eyes.  Lance had to fight to keep from snorting.

"Whoa, easy there, mullet. You'll have to buy me dinner first."

  That was before Keith planted his hands on Lance’s hips.  Lance tried jerk away, startled, but Keith only moved with him.

“Dude, what the hell?”  Lance yelped, trying to squirm away. 

  Keith rolled his eyes. “You’re too stiff.  Relax your posture.”

  Relax his posture with hands gripping so close to his ass?  _Keith’s hands,_ no less.  He’d have an easier time setting himself on fire.  He caught Professor Montgomery’s eyes in the mirror, though, and she raised her eyebrows.  He took a breath, forcing himself to relax.  He had to take this seriously.  Lance tried to slump his shoulders forward. 

  Keith winced at the awkward bend.  “That’ll work for now, I guess.  Okay, the trick is to move with the beat.  Hips are important, but they’re not everything.  We can get into more complicated movements as you get better at basics, but today I guess we should stick with beat synchronization.  Just move around a little, get used to the beat.”

  He demonstrated, giving his shoulders a roll that looked too calm, hands still attached to Lance’s waist.  Lance could feel his face heating uncomfortably as he attempted to shake his hips.  He felt stupid, dancing like this in front of his professor and an almost-complete stranger.  Worse yet was the way Keith’s eyes were raking over him, narrowed, taking in every twitch.  It was one thing to roll his hips in the shower or doing dishes or messing around with Hunk in the apartment living room.  This felt awkward, a plastic shake in his knees as he tried to figure out what the hell he was doing. 

  “No, no no no.”  Keith waved his hands, going around behind Lance and _there were his hands again fuck_ as he pulled Lance in closer.

  “Going to show me your golf swing?” Lance joked. 

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed into a knot in the mirror in front of them.   “What?”

  “Nothing.”  Lance shook his head, the easy joking going out the window when Keith pressed against his back and pulled him in closer.

  “You’re lagging,” he explained, shaking his own hips and pulling Lance along with him as he rolled in a wide circle, exactly on beat.  Lance could feel the heat coming off him, suddenly very aware that all that was between them was a few layers of spandex and cotton.  He smelled great, too—like soap and sweat and cinnamon.

  “Can you focus, please?”  Keith snapped, knocking Lance out of his thoughts.  He felt his cheeks burning again.

  “Sorry.”

  It continued like that, Keith getting bossy and Lance getting lost in his thoughts trying to avoid thinking about just how fucking _close_ he was to various body parts. "Wrong way," said the mullet. "Stop swinging. Your body is not a baseball bat." Just to fuck with him, Lance popped a hip out aggressively. "Lance! Focus!"   This wasn’t the restrained grace of ballet that he was used to.  This was physically intimate in a way Lance hadn’t expected, and he needed to distract himself to keep from thinking about how stupid he felt every time Keith had to knock him back out of his thoughts. 

  It was a bit of a destructive loop.

  Needless to say, by the time they had finished for the night Lance was just ready to go home and hide under his blankets for a week.  His heart sank when Professor Montgomery pulled her jacket over her workout clothes, shooting him a sunny smile. 

  “I’ll see you two tomorrow, yes?”   

  He forced the best grin he could, shoving his water bottle into his bag.  “See you then.”

  Keith was already gone.

**

“You’re late.”

  Nyma was lounging on one of the makeup counters, legs crossed as she painted glitter across her cheekbones.  Keith slammed his duffel down next to her, making the mirror shake as he hurried to pull out his makeup kit.  He had painted half his face on the train, pulling up his hood to hide the glitter on his eyelids.  He could hear the end of Rolo’s act winding down on stage, the crowd's rowdy screams almost drowning out the thump of the music.  Fuck, he had less time than he thought—fifteen minutes to put himself together and get his ass out on stage.

  “Sendak is going to murder you.  He’s already out for blood—some deal went bad tonight out in the club.”

  “The deal is none of your concern,” Thace’s voice joined in from the stage door as it closed behind him.  His headset was lit up, impeccably placed even though his clipboard was already piled high with routine notes and a few stray dollar bills.  Nyma breezed past him, booping Thace’s nose so that a clump of glitter stuck there.  The man wrinkled his entire face, shaking his head like an irritated cat.  Rolo came off stage, holding the door for Nyma and already pulling singles out of his vest.  Keith yanked on his fishnets and started tying a corset around his waist.  He wasn’t huge on the outfit—made it harder to move—but his stage persona was the femme of the group.  Nyma had her badass steampunk personality, Rolo was the ripped macho man under nerd glasses and a suit.

   The dancers all had a niche they were required to fit, and Keith—one of the youngest dancers here—was no exception.  Every routine was tailored to fit the wide range of clientele, the never-ending stream of Galra who came for business or drugs or just to ogle.  The club was only a backdrop, but anyone on the scene knew Zarkon had a lot of pride in how his affiliates presented themselves.  The club was practically black-tie, a rich guest list and velvet ropes, but at the end of the day Keith was still taking his clothes off.  Luckily, he got paid pretty well for it.  He’d been working to supplement his tuition for almost a year now.  Shiro kept telling him to quit, to find something else, but no one else had come close to dealing with his attitude.

  At least he got to dance.  The amount of clothing he had on while doing it was something he tried not to think about too much. 

  “Strike two, cub.”  Thace admonished, putting an angry little checkmark on Keith’s timesheet.  “You need to be more careful.”

  There was a warning in his voice, but Keith knew Thace wasn’t really someone he had to worry about.  The guy was grouchy, but Keith had dealt with far scarier assholes.

“ _Where is he?”_

Speaking of assholes.

 

  Sendak came busting through the dressing room, huge shoulders scattering racks of clothing as he stormed towards Keith. 

“Do you know how fucking _late_ you are?  Does your phone work?”

  Keith winced at the thought of what some of the messages on his phone must sound like.  Sendak was famous for his temper, a man who seemed to speak almost exclusively in growls and italics—bitter about being in charge of the club and having to corral dancers.  He was the first to remind everyone that he was a right hand to Zarkon, far too good to be working the club circuit.  Keith suspected that he just hated the glitter.  Sendak got up in his face before he had a chance to back away, almost making Keith totter over as he tried to pull on his stilettos. His ankle twinged again, but he tried not to wince as the sweaty Galra loomed over him.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?  I had a meeting.”

Sendak slammed a fist on the counter next to him, making the makeup jars rattle and the lights around the mirror flicker.  “A _meeting?_ ”

  Keith stared up at him, eyes hard.  “Yes.”

  His voice came out tighter than he wanted it to, and he saw Sendak’s eyes go to slits as he tried to detect a hint of sarcasm in his words.  Keith stared, refusing to back down.  Finally, he seemed to pass inspection.

  “Get in here late one more time, Kogane.  I will throw your ass to the wolves in the front row.”

Seeing Keith’s phone on the counter next to his duffel, he seized it in one meaty fist.  "Use it or lose it," he snarled. Looking Keith straight in the eye, he slammed it down on the edge of the counter hard.  Once.  Twice, three times, and Keith heard something shatter.  His gut was burning with anger, buzzing heat zipping up his legs behind the tight lines of the fishnets.  He tried to grab for the phone, but Sendak dropped it on the floor in front of him before turning on his heel.  Thace picked it up with two fingers, placing it in Keith’s shaking hands.

  Seeing Keith’s expression, his eyes softened a little.  “No tears, cub.  Your makeup will run.”

  “I hate him.”  Keith could barely get the words out, the way his teeth were clenched together.  The freezing air from the back door was ghosting over his skin, but the shivers running over him weren’t from the cold.  Nyma came down and gave him a nudge towards the stage door. 

  “You’re on, Starboy."

  He tried to shake off the buzz under his skin as he climbed into the dark area behind the curtain, the thump of the bass the only thing to focus on as he whole body was drenched in red light.  He brought one stiletto-clad leg up on the chair as the lights came over him, blurring out the audience.  The cheering was a dull roar, rushing in his ears as the music came up around him.  He was swimming in neon, ripping the corset open to thunderous whooping from the front row.  It was a good audience, the high of performing drowning out his need to put his heel through the nearest wall.

  It was the weirdest pull, up there in the lights.  He hated his job, but the dancing he could do here was completely unrestrained—he could perform with his eyes closed, the raw adrenaline washing away everything else as he swung himself around the stage without any reservations.   It was all just sensations: the chill of the pole in his hands, the easy split of his muscles as he crawled down to let the dollar bills shower over him, the glitter smeared over his cheekbones throwing flashes of light into his eyes. 

  He closed his eyes, the beat vibrating in his chest, and waited for it to be over.


	4. Crescendo

  The lights in the Sunshine Café were perfect for sketching.

  Not that Keith was actually supposed to be here—he only had an hour for lunch on Thursdays, and his bike probably didn’t have enough gas to get back to the school—but he had needed a breather.  The place was tiny, just big enough to duck out of the cold.  He hadn’t meant to stay, but the tall woman behind the counter stooped to say hello and he found himself tucked into a back corner table with a mug of hot chocolate steaming between his hands.  It was a cozy little place, full of dark wood and cheerful yellow paint and fairy lights wound around anything nailed down. 

  They threw perfect shadows on the people chatting in booths and beanbag chairs, highlighted the glow of the woman behind the counter and the fat pastries in the display case in a way that felt…kind of homey, if he was being honest.  He pulled a pencil out of his bag, laying lines on the crumpled napkin in front of him. 

  Eventually, the room started to take shape: the columns and the mismatched chairs and the green vines tangled on the windowsill, the three people piling in the door—

Wait.

**

  “Lance, slow down!”

  Lance didn’t want to slow down.  He couldn’t feel his nose, this was no time for slowing down.  Hunk was panting behind him, still winded from almost breaking his neck on the ice.  Pidge was padding along behind them, wrapped in layers so thick all Lance could see were her glasses.  She even had mittens on.  _Mittens._ The café was open ahead of them, warm and yellow in the snow, and Lance pulled Hunk across the street, teeth chattering. 

Pidge snorted behind him when he almost went face-first into the ice.  “Lance, you’re going to break your neck.”

“I can’t help it, I need a latte.  And _heating._ ”  His statement was punctuated by his chattering teeth.

“Maybe if you wore more than that skinny jacket you wouldn’t be freezing your ass off.”

“Hey, don’t knock the jacket!  At least I’m not waddling around like a penguin, Pidgeon.  Hunk, back me up here?”

Hunk put his hands in the air, using gloved fingers to pull open the door to the café.  “She’s got a point, dude.  Plus, you have like, zero body fat.  I’m surprised you haven’t frozen solid.”

Lance swept inside, already feeling the flush of warmth against his numb nose.  His hands started prickling as he rubbed them together, heading towards the front counter.  Shay grinned when she saw him, already pulling out the tray of orange scones—freshly baked, icing still melting over the sides—and he leaned both elbows on the counter.

  “Welcome back!”  Shay said, flicking open the register and typing in what he knew would be a gingerbread latte with extra whipped cream and cinnamon.  “Are your friends staying for lunch?”

  “Only if we can sit at the counter,” he said, winking.  Shay laughed. 

  “You came in the middle of the rush, I’m afraid.  But you are welcome to take a booth in the back.” 

Lance put a hand to his chest, mock offended as Hunk and Pidge peeled off layers behind him.  “Banished to the _booths?_ I thought you said I was always welcome!”

  Shay handed him a plate with a steaming scone and turned to make his drink, shaking her head.  “I am not making you do dishes, am I?”

  “Nope, no you are not.  I consider myself welcomed.  Thank you, madame.”

Pidge ordered her double-shot and Hunk was close behind, shuffling shyly from one foot to the other as he ordered a wrap and waffled around ordering his drink.  Shay was blushing while she rang him up, though, and as they turned to find a table Lance elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Dude, just ask her out already.  At this point I’m surprised she hasn’t put hearts in your latte.”

  Hunk shrugged, fiddling with the buttons on his jacket.  It was self-designed, black with gold accents, but he seemed to shrink in it a little as he considered the possibility.

  “I just appreciate her, okay?  She makes great food and she’s so nice to everyone…”

Pidge ripped a bite out of her sandwich, not bothering to wait until they sat down.  “Appreciating is different than flirting.” 

  Hunk ducked down into his collar, cheeks turning a warm color as he stammered.  “I wasn’t flirting!  I was just—is that Keith?”

  At first, Lance only raised an eyebrow at his obvious attempts to change the subject, but he turned around when he felt a familiar gaze boring into his back. 

  There he was, sitting in the corner by himself, eyes flickering nervously towards the door.  While he was busy staring, Hunk nudged Lance in the back.

  “We should say hi.”

Lance’s jaw fell open so fast he almost lost his mouthful of coffee. “No.  No no no, no way.”

“Don’t be such a baby, Lance.  His table’s practically empty, and it looks like the only open spot.”  Pidge was already marching towards the booth, even as Lance tried to drag her back by the elbow.

“Pidge.  _Pidge, no._ Come on, I’ll take apartment dish duty for a week.  A _month._ I’ll make tamales.  I’ll stop putting moisturizer in your shower kit. _Please_.”

  She plunked down across from Keith with a _whump_ , the leather seat bouncing underneath her as she dug into her sandwich with relish.  Keith stared at her as she took a mouthful of BLT and looked back at him casually.  Lance and Hunk stood at the edge of the table, Lance waggling his fingers in an awkward wave. 

  “Is it okay if we join you?”  Hunk asked, smiling easily as Keith narrowed his eyes.  The mullet shrugged, scooting his stuff over to make room. 

  “Sure, I guess.”

“Keith, right?  I’ve seen you around, in the auditorium.  You’re Shiro’s roommate.”

Another shrug as Hunk slid in next to him, Lance plopping himself down next to Pidge and avoiding looking at those gorgeous violet eyes.  He wasn’t even hungry now, picking at the edges of his scone as Hunk tried to make small talk with the guy.  He leaned over a little bit, buttons glinting as he squinted at the napkin in front of Keith that was covered in doodles. 

  “Hey, this is pretty good!  I didn’t know you were an artist.”

Keith flushed, sweeping the napkin under his cup.  “I’m really not.  It was just a sketch.”

  “It’s still cool, man.  Nice job.” 

  It was just Hunk’s particular brand of magic that he could make anyone relax around him—Keith already seemed to be unwinding a little bit as he talked about classes, about art projects and the songs coming on over the café speakers.  The conversation stuttered when Hunk brought up the All-City competition. 

  “So, you’re Lance’s partner?  I hear you guys are supposed to have practice choreography this week.”

  Lance felt his own shoulders stiffen at the idea—he had spent hours in front of a studio mirror trying to come up with something that wouldn’t make him look like a giraffe trying to samba.  He’d given up last night in favor of finishing an English assignment and had never gotten around to finishing the first step sequence.  Keith pulled back as well, looking kind of sour. 

  “I still need to pull something together.  I’ve been kind of busy.”

Lance snorted.  “Yeah, I bet.”

Hunk immediately kicked him under the table, but Keith’s eyes had already snapped to his.  “I work too, you know.  We all gotta pay for this somehow.”

  “I feel that, man.  What do you do?”  There was Hunk, desperately trying to diffuse the situation before Keith could curl back into himself.  Lance felt guilty, but the fuse had already been lit.  Keith was pushing his way out of the booth, almost dumping his cup in the process. 

  “I have to go.  Class.”  He shoved his hood up and over his hair, tugging at his fingerless gloves as he turned his back on the booth.  He shoved a few dollars in the tip jar before heading out, jamming his hands in his pockets as he went.  When Lance turned back to his friends, they were both staring.  Pidge looked completely unimpressed, even having paused in inhaling her sandwich to give him a dirty look.

  “That was mean,” she said, putting her food down to flick him on the arm.  Hunk shook his head as Keith revved his motor outside, zooming off into the cold.  He looked upset, Lance realized, more upset than he should about a one-off comment.  God, stress was turning him into an asshole.  They finished lunch in silence, Lance dreading the practice session to come.

 **

“It’s like watching hate sex.”

Well, Matt wasn’t wrong. 

  Shiro sighed, staring down at the pair quizzically from behind the observation glass as they ran through warm-ups.  Professor Montgomery was at the far end of the studio flipping through music selections—so far she’d managed to keep the two of them from killing each other.  Keith was running footwork in a corner, stubbornly refusing to get any closer to Lance.  Lance had practically pasted himself to the mirror and barre the second Keith came in.  Twenty minutes into the session, and the center of the practice room was decidedly empty. 

  He hadn’t thought that it would be this bad—Keith’s mood after the first class had been worse than sour, and Shiro had seen the busted screen on his phone.  Keith hadn’t wanted to talk about it, just stormed past to scrub off his makeup.  He hadn’t eaten dinner, and Shiro was pretty sure he hadn’t slept properly in a few days.  Keith had been drifting in and out of the apartment at weirder hours than usual, tinkering with his bike in the cold and avoiding Shiro like the plague whenever he tried to get him to talk.  Allura had offered to slip him the keys to the observation room, Matt trailing after him to take in what promised to be an entertaining hour and a half. 

  Montgomery shoved them together, forcing the choreography into something that kind of resembled a dance, but it was like watching magnets get pushed together at opposite poles—the second one got to close, the other one would jump away. 

  Matt squinted at the two of them as they slid past each other again.  “Is it supposed to look like that?”

He slid his hands crossways, looking confused as Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Probably not.”

Matt sprawled back in the rolling chair, leaning so the whole thing tilted dangerously.  “Hey, he’s doing okay.  Nobody is bleeding.  Hovering isn’t going to fix the awkward.”

  “I’m not—“Shiro started, but Matt’s eyebrows were already at his hairline as he gestured at the room around them.

  “Double-sided glass?  Really?  You’re hovering, Takashi, like a god damn airplane.  What do you say, how about instead of stalking your duckling we ditch this place and go get Thai food with Allura?”

  “I wish I could,” Shiro said, his stomach sinking as he realizing why he had been stalling.  “I have a meeting with Alfor about the senior recitals, then tutoring and a workout.”

Matt groaned, shoving his palms into his eyeballs.  “Why are you like this?  Can’t you slack off like the rest of us for once?  Just one afternoon of being fat and unmotivated like a normal human being, and then I’d set you free.”

  “I don’t think so.  If I slacked off once I don’t think I’d ever want to stop.  Then who would kick your ass into doing actual work?”  Shiro smirked. 

  “You got me.  It’s all part of my secret plan to overtake your spot as valedictorian and then rule the school with an iron fist.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” Shiro said, but Matt held up a finger.

  “Let me live in my delusions, Shirogane.  But seriously, one night out wouldn’t kill you.  I’m a pretty hot date, don’t you think?”

“You’re something,” Shiro agreed, even though it came out softer than he meant it to.  Feeling his cheeks heat, he focused harder on the dancers below.  Keith looked pissed, jerking himself around the dance floor like he was about to fight someone.  Lance just looked lost as he followed, hands awkwardly wrapped around Keith’s hips like they were doing some kind of weird conga.  Matt looked down at them too, biting his lip and fiddling with the earbuds looped around his neck. 

  “He’ll be fine, Shiro.  Promise.”

But there was still that nagging voice as he watched Keith grit his teeth and continue on without bothering to watch where he was going.  Would he?

**

  They were packing up when Lance cleared his throat.  Keith did his best to ignore it, shoving sweaty socks into his bag and trying to find his earbuds in the tangled mess of wires at the bottom.  Lance cleared his throat again, louder this time, and Keith clenched his jaw before turning around.

  “ _What.”_  

  Lance at least had the decency to look kind of embarrassed.  He shuffled in his hoodie, seeming to gather courage before he spoke.  His shoulders hitched up a little, but he drew himself up before opening his mouth.

  “IjustwantedtosayI’msorry.”

  Keith stared at him, confused at the garble of words.  “What?”

  Lance cleared his throat again, speaking louder now that he had gotten the words out of his jammed throat.  “I wanted to apologize, for earlier at the café.  I was an ass.  I’m sorry.”

  That was…not what he expected.  He pulled the zipper on the bag shut, breaking the silence that had settled over the studio.  Montgomery had breezed out early, some doctor’s appointment, so it was just the two of them standing in the half-light of the dance floor.  He thought for a second, trying to figure out what to say—thank you didn’t seem exactly right, and he wouldn’t say it was okay because it wasn’t.  It was awkward, but even the fact that he was apologizing was really—god, dare he think it— _nice_.

  The word that ended up falling out of his mouth was, “okay.”

If he could have banged his head on a desk, he would have.  As it was, he yanked at the laces on his boots with more force than necessary.  Lance’s brow furrowed.

  “I was just thinking, I kind of want to make it up to you.  I know we’ve kind of gotten off on the wrong foot here.  Heh—get it?  Foot?”

  Keith got it.  He didn’t laugh.

  Seeing him waiting expectantly, Lance shifted again, bouncing on his toes.  “There’s this dance company in town for a week or so—they’re kind of indie, and I thought you might like that?  Maybe?  They’re performing at the Sugar Club downtown tomorrow, and we usually go for drinks and dancing after.  Hunk and Pidge and me, I mean.  I don’t know if you’d be interested, but I figured you’d like it because you’re into hip hop?  Not that I’m assuming you only like that kind of thing!  I just—“

  “I’ll come.”  Keith was surprised to find himself saying it—to be saying anything at all in this conversation, actually—but tomorrow was his day off.  Shiro was always telling him to get out more, and this sounded like it could be kind of fun.  Lance seemed into it, at least, and for all that the guy complained he seemed to have good taste.  He pulled his bag over one shoulder as Lance’s jaw worked like a fish. 

  “Really? That’s—cool.  Totally cool.”  He looked like he was forcing himself to act casual as he followed Keith out the door.  “Maybe we could practice your positions out on the dance floor.”

He was joking.  Lance was joking, bopping along beside him like Keith had just said yes to a date.  Keith smirked at him.

“I’m not doing the toe thing.”

“It’s called pointe, idiot.  We don’t have that kind of time anyway, even if I thought you could pull it off.”

  It wasn’t easy—not yet.  But as they both clambered down the icy front steps outside Arus, it was a little less tense. 

**

  “He’s not coming, I told you!”  Lance had to yell to be heard over the rock music blasting from the speakers, and even then Hunk had to lean forward to read his lips. 

  “Maybe he’s stuck in traffic.  He said yes, didn’t he?”  Hunk was way too calm about this whole thing, leaning back in the booth and sipping at his mojito with grace.  Pidge had opted out of the club tonight, some mixing project busily compiling on her computer as she helped Matt with graphics.  Lance had left the two of them on the couch in the apartment chattering excitedly over a design breakthrough.   

  “Maybe he just said it to get me off his back, I don’t know!”  Lance threw his hands in the air, almost knocking over his own drink in the process.  The club was hot, crowded and full of smoky light.  The dance show was already over, and the crowd had mixed itself into a tipsy frenzy as Hunk and Lance finished off their first round.  Hunk looked over his shoulder, eyes widening as he pointed.

  “You might want to turn around before you say anything else.”

  Lance did.  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  It was _Keith,_ moving in way that should have been illegal and wearing pants that looked like they’d been spray-painted on.  As he approached the table, Lance saw that he was wearing eyeliner, smudged across his lashes in a way that made his eyes look even brighter.  Despite the tight clothes and makeup, as he approached the table he looked nervous.  Lance looked him up and down, eyebrows up.

  “Looking good, Keith!”  Hunk hooted, and Keith’s cheeks went pink. 

  “Sorry I’m late, I got called in for a shift.  I came as soon as I could.”

  Lance swallowed a joke about the kind of work he could do in those pants, instead pointing to his glass.  “No worries, man.  You want a drink?”

  “I don’t really drink,” Keith said, shrugging as he was jostled by the dancers.

  “What, afraid you can’t take the heat?” 

  “Lance—“ Hunk warned, but Keith cut him off, eyes narrowed.

  “You know what?  I have the night off.  Go for it.”

 Plunking down in the booth, Keith slid a twenty towards him, and Lance grinned.  Now this, he could go for.  Maybe getting drunk wasn’t the best way of dealing with the awkward, but alcohol was a social lubricant, right?  “Shot for shot?”

  Hunk groaned, the sound almost lost in the bass.  “No, none for me.  You two are not going to have fun in the morning, I promise you that.  I’ll go up to get them—I gotta find a bathroom.”

 **

The first shot went down heavy, like lighter fluid, and Keith felt his face pull around the burn in his throat.  Lance laughed. 

  “You don’t party much, do you?”

Keith scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, sticking his tongue out.  “You do?”

  “Eh, I have a high tolerance.  I like a good night out every once in a while.  The drinks come second to the dancing, though.”

 Keith had to suppress the laugh that almost busted out.  “You ballet dance in here?”

Lance scoffed.  “Nope.  That’s what the shots are for.”

“You can’t exactly take shots before All-City—you know that, right?”

Lance wrinkled his nose, pulling another shot off the tray in front of them.  “Unfortunately.  Come on, let’s get out there.  Shot number two, let’s go, down the hatch.”

  The second one was a little easier, and after one more Keith let himself be pulled out to the center of the dance floor.  Now this, he knew how to do.  The crowd parted as he popped a little bit, shaking out the kinks in his muscles from his dance set earlier.  Lance watched, trying to follow.  He was looser here than in the studio, able to roll his hips around without dropping off beat.  The mosh pit of dancers around them whooped as Lance struck a pose, his stance easy as he pushed his chest towards Keith like a bull-fighter.  Keith returned the favor, circling around him even though the floor was starting to tilt a little.  The lights were flashing, making it a little hard to keep track of his feet, but he knew how to work the muscles in his legs so that they pulled up and around in an easy stumble that looked like it was on purpose.  The bass cranked so that it was hard to hear anything else, and Keith felt it like a heartbeat in his bones as he pressed against the dancers around him, looked Lance in the eye and _rolled_.  This was what it was supposed to feel like, what it felt like when he was by himself, but this was wilder—there were people dancing just as hard as he was, not caring about form or style or how sexy he looked while he did it.  Lance was right there beside him, working his way through moves that he’d never been able to do in practice, and when their gazes met he could see the same spark in the blue eyes that he felt in his chest.

  It was a blur of light and color and bass and the boy next to him, the floor floating under his feet as he just _moved._ This was higher than any stage, the blood singing in his veins as the room throbbed under him. 

  The ocean of dancers rolled around them, and Keith didn’t remember much beyond that.

**

  Out in the kitchen someone had the radio up, and the singing was loud and incredibly off key as they banged around the kitchen cooking breakfast. Keith groaned and tried to bury his face in the cushions to hide from the ungodly amount of sunshine, but ended up falling off the couch with a thud. His head was so rattled that the room tilted violently.  From his place on the floor he watched an upside-down Pidge walk over to peer down at him with a grin that could only be described as satanic.

  "Morning, sunshine!" she chirped.  Loudly.

  Keith rolled into the carpet with a moan and attempted to slap his hands over his ears. His head rang as Pidge hauled him upright to face the kitchen. A blurry figure Keith vaguely recognized as Hunk waved cheerily from his place at the stove where the smell of bacon permeated the air. Keith's stomach flipped.

  “Wha’ time’s it?”  He managed, looking around at an unfamiliar living room—Lance’s living room, he realized, as he remembered the drunken stumble back to the student apartments.  They had been a shorter walk than the other side of town, and Keith had left his bike parked outside the club. 

  “Time for you to get up,” Pidge insisted.  “Your phone’s been ringing for hours.”

Keith stood up straight at that, trying to dig through his pockets.  Pidge rolled her eyes, slapping his cracked phone into his hand.  The screen lit again, Shiro’s ringtone piercing his ears as he squinted at the screen.  He swiped to answer, carefully holding the phone a few inches away from his ear.

  “Yeah?”

There was a gust of relief on the other end.  “Oh my God, you’re okay.  You didn’t come home last night after work.”

  “I went out.  I ended up crashing with—“ he looked surreptitiously at hunk at Pidge, who were pretending not to listen.  “Some friends.  Is something wrong?”

  “There were raids on some Galra clubs last night.  Sendak got arrested—I didn’t know if you were working or not.”

  Shit, he was going to be so pissed when he got out—he would get out, he had countless times before—but this would mean tighter security, a worse work schedule and the club crawling with lower-ranking Galra.  He hated those guys—they got handsy.

  “Listen, I’m on my way home, okay?  I’ll see you soon.”

**

  “No, Keith, wait!”  He had already hung up.  Shiro looked at the news station again, the Galra symbol emblazoned over a lineup of drug runners and gun men. 

  Beside it, there were blurry pictures, a shaky video from a phone camera with a dirty lens.  It was a short clip, and the dancer in the background was only recognizable as Keith to someone who knew him, but it was out there.

  God, they were screwed.


	5. Syncopation

She knew it was Matt when the lights started fading into colors around her.

  Allura wouldn’t have noticed the change if not for the light sparking off the top of the piano, but she kept playing, Debussy’s _Rêverie_ echoing in the concert hall as the gels overhead ran through a cycle of pink and blue and some strange color in between.  The piece already sounded like a dream, the hazy colors dancing over the top of the piano adding to the way the notes blended like water.  She usually played with her eyes closed, but this was stunning, the colors weaving between each other as Matt twisted through the spectrum. 

    The rest of the auditorium was dark, the colors rippling over the stage in dappled waves like Allura was playing at the bottom of an ocean, or in a tangle of colored Christmas lights.  They came faster as the piece sped through the final arpeggios, sliding back up to sunset colors as the last notes sang under her fingers.  She threw in a glissando, playfully sliding her hands down the keys, and she heard Matt snort in the booth above. 

  “Showoff!” He hollered down, setting the stage lights back to neutral.  She squinted up at where she could see him leaning out of the booth window, hair ruffled and elbows perched precariously on the angled ceiling.

  “Is this the bit where I tell you to let down your hair?”  Allura joked, shading her eyes from the stage lights.

 Matt clambered down the stage stairs, flipping the lock on the booth door as he went.  “Sorry, PC, but you’re not exactly my type.”

  “PC?”  Allura asked.  She swept her hair up into a bun as Matt sauntered over with his lunch bag already open.   

  “Prince Charming,” he said around mouthful of apple.  He plunked down on the edge of the stage and Allura crouched to join him, swinging her legs in the empty space over the orchestra pit.

  “And what is your type?”  she asked, reaching over to steal a Cheeto from his bag.  “Hmm, let me guess: tall, muscled, a cellist of incomparable talent?”

  Matt stuck his tongue out at her, pulling the Cheeto bag out of reach.  “Watch it, princess.  I might decide to withhold my juicy gossip.”

  Allura shrugged, pinning him down easily with one leg and grabbing the snacks back with a grin.  Matt yelped indignantly, flailing to try and get out of the hold.  “Curse you and your stupid jiu-jitsu training!  I barely survived pee-wee soccer, Allura, come on!”

  Cheetos acquired, she let him loose with a shake of her head.  “You should know better than to try and keep these away from me, Matthew.  Shiro isn’t here to save you from me this time.”

  “Speak of the handsome devil, where is he?”  Matt asked, sitting up and trying to push his hair back into some kind of order.  Allura sighed, hunting through the bag for a Cheeto that was just the right shade of neon orange.

  “He’s having lunch in town with his father.” 

  Matt groaned, flopping back down onto the stage with a gusty sigh.  “The return of the royal asshole, huh?  How much cheering up do you think he’s going to need after this one?”

  Allura paused, munching thoughtfully as she tried to remember the last time Shiro had come away from a family meeting even remotely happy.  His father, especially, had a way of pulling the excitement right out of his son—at the last showcase recital, he had showed up twenty minutes late and stiffly remarked how this would look on a business résumé once Shiro finally buckled down and got serious. 

  Apparently, music was not an affable career for the son of a business dynasty. 

  Allura could see why her father got so protective over Shiro—on more than one occasion, Alfor had ushered her friend to their house for Thanksgiving or Christmas or celebratory promotion dinners.  He came to most concerts and found graduate scholarships for cellists.  He had even offered Shiro a teaching position for the next year, if he hadn’t signed on with any orchestras. 

  “I think we may need to pull out a Star Trek night if we’re going to save him today.  Original version and peach schnapps, for good measure.”

  “Think you can go four episodes without dragging Captain Kirk this time?” Matt asked, and she threw a Cheeto at him.

  “Never.  He’s almost as dramatic as you, and that can’t go unchecked.” 

  Matt cackled and snapped a picture of the two of them on his phone, laughing as Allura squawked indignantly at the sight of the cheese dust on her face.  She pinned him again as he tried to keep the phone out of her reach, but he had already sent the message.

**

  Shiro’s phone buzzed on the table, Matt’s name lighting up onscreen as Shiro downed water from his fancy glass.  Sneaking a look down at the photo, he grinned—Allura had Matt in a headlock, Cheeto dust smeared across both of their cheeks.  He tried to suppress a grin, scooting the phone over so the buzzing was muffled by one of the swan-folded napkins.  His father raised an eyebrow across the table, cutting into his duck with an easy swipe of his knife. 

 “Everything all right over there?” he asked.  Shiro nodded, wishing he had taken more time with his food so he wouldn’t have to sit here awkwardly observing the people around them, drowning himself in ice water just so he’d have something to do.  These lunches were meant to be check-ins, a time to discuss whatever had gone on at home in the past few weeks, the neighbors’ transgressions in _insisting_ their Christmas decorations stay up until February or the most recent in a string of business endeavors.  Shiro wanted to talk about the kids he had tutored over the summer, the fact that he _still_ only had eight measures of his senior project written.  He wanted to ask about bringing Keith home for Christmas, finally giving the kid a place to stay other than a drafty student apartment.  He wanted to ask his dad what kind of opportunities there were for a good kid in a bad situation, about what might happen if someone recognized Keith in that stupid video that had been playing over and over on the investigative news channels.

  He wanted to ask if he would come to Shiro’s senior showcase and meet Matt and Allura and Alfor.  To see him play his biggest audience since he was eight years old.

  But bringing up any of those things would make this lunch even more awful than it usually was—so Shiro stuck to counting the ice cubes in his glass and commenting occasionally on how nice the weather had been.  He couldn’t avoid the anvil forever, though.

  As they waited for the check, his dad leaned forward and put both elbows on the table.  Shiro leaned back automatically as he realized what was coming.

  “I set up an interview for you at the firm—it’s just an intern position, but with a few years of business school under your belt you’ll be ready for the upper levels in no time.”

  “I actually already have a postgraduate interview set up,” Shiro blurted, and immediately wished he hadn’t.  His dad’s face grew serious, and he pulled carefully at his cuff links.

  “Oh?”

  Jesus, that sentence was a time bomb.  Answer too slowly, and Shiro would be shot down like the duck his father had just eaten.  Too quickly, and he was afraid the words wouldn’t come out.  There was a careful pause.

  “Alfor—the headmaster—has been asking if I would teach at Arus.  It’s a great position for someone like me.  I’d be able to continue studying and mentor gifted students.  He said they’d even let me sit on the admissions board once I complete a year of teaching—I’d help vet the auditions process and take on a few select students to work with as advisees.  I could even do graduate work there.”

  “How much does it pay?” 

There it was.  Shiro looked at the tablecloth, where a smear of nikiri had landed when he was eating.

  “We hadn’t really discussed that yet.”

  “Did you even ballpark the numbers, Takashi?”  his father sighed, and Shiro felt small.  “You’ve racked up quite a bit of debt during your time at that school.  Would what you earned teaching even begin to pay that back?”

  “I could figure something else out—“

  “Something else like what?  Bartending?  Stripping?”

  Shiro’s eyes narrowed as the words hit him, and he almost shoved back his chair before his dad’s eyes softened a little bit.  “I don’t want to see you selling yourself short to follow a pipe dream, Takashi.  I know you love music, but is it worth it to throw away generations of our family’s work just so you can indenture yourself to that school?”

    It made a sick sort of sense.  Shiro hated it.

  There were no more words once the check was paid, and Shiro listened to the C Minor Sarabande on a loop on the taxi ride back to the apartment.

**

“So what are we doing, Swan Lake?  The Nutcracker?”

“Those are way too well known.”  Lance was flipping through the record box in the studio, having long since discarded his phone after Keith vetoed half the songs on his playlists.

Keith scoffed, stretched out in a split in the center of the floor.  “Oh my god, are you a ballet hipster?  Is that even a thing?”

“Those are routines that the judges have seen a million times.  They’ve performed them in professional companies and seen them seven or eight times a season since they were just starting out.  Besides, All-City is about coming up with something _new._ We have to turn classic ballet into something funky.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want as long as you don’t say the word funky again,” Keith said, scrolling through his phone and transmitting a warm-up song to the sound system as he moved into a toe touch.  Lance bopped along to the music a little bit, mouthing along to the chorus as AJR rocked the speakers.  He was wearing his lucky legwarmers today, something Keith had nearly fallen over laughing at when he showed up to practice.  They had agreed to meet and go over some footwork to show Montgomery before they had to show individual routines. 

  Lance was looser since they had gone out to the club, and Keith was starting to find it easier to talk to him after having lunch with the gang for a few weeks in a row.  Pidge had invited Keith over for a weekend Mario Kart tournament (during which Lance hadn’t stopped whining about Keith’s constant blue-shelling) and he had been surprised to find himself meeting up with the three before classes started in the morning, coffee in hand and hair an absolute mess.  Lance usually turned chugging coffee into a competition, almost snorting it out of his nose on more than one occasion as he tried to finish before Keith.

  Shiro’s ringtone came through the speakers, a cello and piano mix that he and Allura had come up with in the apartment living room, and Lance froze.

  “What was that?”

  Keith hurried to turn the music back on, swiping Shiro’s call to voicemail.  “Sorry, ringtone.”

  “Play it again.”  Lance cranked the volume on the speakers, waiting with his hands on his hips as Keith stared.

  “What?”

  “Just play it again, mullet—I’m getting something here.”

  Keith hunted through his recordings and found the file, playing the little duet snippet over again.  It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds long but Lance moved along with it anyway, dancing over to where Keith was and pulling him out of a stretch.

  “Come on, get up!  This is great, what’s it called?”

  “Um, I don’t know?”  Keith said with a shrug.  Lance scowled at him, trying to grab the cracked phone out of his hands. 

  “The same way you didn’t know Fergie?  Or is this like the time you pretended not to know who Tchaikovsky was?”

  “Shiro and Allura came up with it.  I don’t know if they ever gave it a title.” 

  “Come on, I swear I’ve heard this before.”  Lance pouted as Keith held the phone out of reach, one gangly leg stretched up in an arabesque as he tried to hit the play button again. 

  Unprepared for the sudden closeness, Keith put an arm up to bar him and lost his balance, arms wind milling as Lance kept pressing forward.  Trying not to fall, Keith grabbed for the nearest thing—

  Which just happened to be Lance’s waist.

  They went down in a twist and tangle of limbs, Keith collapsing forward on to Lance’s chest as all the air rushed out of both of them.  Lance was quiet for once, staring up at him in shock as Keith pushed himself up onto his hands. 

  “You okay?”  Keith asked, worried at the sudden silence.  He didn’t look like he had hit his head, and nothing was bleeding, so why did he look so dazed? 

“You’re really…” Lance said, cheeks going bright as he looked up at Keith’s hair falling out of the ponytail it had been in. 

“What?”  They were both breathing hard, and Keith could feel his face going red already—he had just toppled them both, and now Lance was between his legs like they were on stage at the club.

“Sweaty,” Lance finished.  Abruptly, Keith realized he was still on top of his partner, and he backed up quickly, hauling the other dancer to his feet as he felt his cheeks burning.  Of _course_ he was sweaty, he had just gone ass-over-teakettle with his hot dance partner.

  His hot, stubborn dance partner who choked on coffee and wore lucky legwarmers and stole Keith’s pens in the mornings before class, who used Hunk as a piggyback mule on the way back to Arus sometimes and still squealed like a little kid when Pidge upended them into snowbanks, who twisted like he was made of rubber but couldn’t body roll to save his life.

  Keith had to shake out his ponytail to hide his face as he realized just how complicated things were about to get.

**

  Pidge had been laughing for fifteen minutes straight.

  “ _Sweaty?”_ she yelped again, kicking her legs out as she tried desperately to catch her breath.  She had fallen off the couch when Lance had told the story of the disastrous practice fall.

“I was rattled, okay?”  Lance moaned, burying his face in his hands at the kitchen table.  Hunk patted him on the shoulder sympathetically, trying to keep Lance’s elbows from crumpling any of his design pieces as he sewed the sleeve onto a choir suit.

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t hold it against you, it was an accident.”

  Pidge was still on the floor, practically crying from laughter. 

  “It wasn’t _that_ funny,” Lance grumbled as he got up to pace around the kitchen.  “He got all weird and quiet and now he’s never going to want to dance with me again.” 

  Hunk looked at Lance over his magnifying glasses, pausing in his line of stitches to clear his throat.  “Funnily enough, buddy, I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that.  Have you even looked at the guy over the past few weeks?  You’re both a little starry-eyed.”

  “You’re just saying that so I don’t swan dive off the nearest garbage barge,” Lance said, digging through his stocks of ramen and pulling out the spiciest one he could find.  Maybe he could burn his eyeballs out if he dumped enough sriracha on his noodles, and then he wouldn’t have to face Keith at practice tomorrow. 

  “No sriracha,” Hunk said without looking up.  “I’m not taking you to the ER again.”

  Lance groaned, and put the bottle back in the fridge. 

  Pidge still hadn’t stopped laughing.

**

The van outside the student apartments looked rather inconspicuous at first—the name of the electric maintenance company splattered across the side. 

  “You’re sure he lives here?”  Antok asked, watching the screens for the fifth hour in a row.  He didn’t fit well in the surveillance van, his head brushing the ceiling.  Stakeouts were always cramped, but Antok was one of the biggest officers in the precinct.  Kolivan, on the other hand, could spend hours crunched in the back reading through the latest reports on the Galra club raids. 

  Last week’s raid had just been a warning, an ill-timed threat carried out by some young hot shots trying to prove how good they’d be at pulling down the reign of Galra in the city.  They were young.  And stupid.  And currently, most of them were missing.

  The gang members in custody had gotten off scot-free after a few hours—sharp-dressed lawyers swooping in to save them from lifetime sentences with the well-placed timing of people who had been hired to know what they were doing. 

  The club had moved locations, but Thace hadn’t reported back to the precinct in four days and he wasn’t responding on his secure line.  Short of any other leads, they had gone through the files on the dancers.  One of them, Keith Kogane, was a special case in most of Thace’s notes.  He was just a college student, a stripper in the after-hours section of the club.  That in itself wasn’t too special, but the back was where most major deals went down.

  Keith knew more than he thought he did, and right now he was the only thin line the Blade unit had to finally tracking down Zarkon.

  “Got him,” Antok said, zooming in manually on one of the kids walking past the van.  He was in a shruggy sweatshirt and leggings, lugging a backpack bigger than his head along towards the student apartments.  His hair was up, but his profile certainly matched that of the grainy video from the news.  Kolivan watched the scrawny dancer head towards the first housing block.

  “We’ll keep an eye on him,” Kolivan decided.  Antok sighed, cracking his neck for the third time in as many minutes as his head scraped the metal ceiling.  The sticker above the surveillance equipment was printed with the Precinct’s motto, a stupid gag gift Thace had delivered to the members last Christmas: _Knowledge or Death._

   Kolivan shuddered.  If this kid didn’t have the information they needed, that motto would turn out to be a god-damned prophecy.


	6. Accelerando

It was still technically cleaning as long as he was holding the mop.  

 If he just happened to be dancing in a locked studio with the curtains drawn at the same time, he had plausible deniability.  It wasn’t a complete loss—the studio floor really did need a once-over—but Lance was convinced that no matter how many times he practiced his step sequence, he was going to forget it in front of Montgomery tomorrow.   Keith had helped him clean up a few steps, adding some locks and synching Lance’s movements with the beat, but he had tried to do the dance in front of Pidge and Hunk the night before and he had just  _ blanked.   _  Completely forgotten where his body was supposed to be going.  Luckily, his roommates had been sweet about it—Hunk had turned the pre-dinner fiasco into an impromptu dance-off—but the routine was due to be presented tomorrow morning in front of Montgomery, who could pick it to pieces if she thought it wasn’t right for the competition.

 In short?  

 Lance was freaking the hell out.

 Hunk wasn’t answering his texts and Pidge had pledged herself off the phone for a few hours for a family dinner in the city.  So here he was, already shaking and trying not to trip over the business end of a mop while he obsessively ran the steps over and over.  

Someone outside rapped on the window, rattling the glass.  Lance spun around with a yelp, dropping the mop with a clatter as he looked around in a panic.  Marching over, he flung the curtains open ready to demand to know why the  _ hell _ someone would bang on a practice room window after hours.  

Keith stood in the hallway, wide-eyed and holding two cups of coffee like they were hand grenades.  “Hi?”

Lance couldn’t help it—his nerves were still high and Keith was standing there like a deer in the headlights with cups that had names scribbled in wobbly letters.  A laugh bubbled out topside, and Keith raised an eyebrow.  

“You okay?”  His voice was muffled by the glass, so Lance waved him through the door quickly.  Keith ducked in, balancing coffee in both hands and trying not to knock the doorframe with his overstuffed book bag as he came in.  Lance scrambled to pick up the mop and lean it against the wall as Keith stood awkwardly to the side.  He thrust one of the cups towards Lance, eyes sliding to the side.

 “This is for you.  One fluffy pumpkin drink with too much sugar.”

 Shoving away his need to puke, Lance fluttered his eyelashes.  “Why, Casanova—you remembered.”

 Keith shrugged and ducked down into his shoulders, looking embarrassed.  “I knew you had to be here tonight, and Shay helped me out with the details.  Do you want it or not?”

 “Caffeine probably isn’t the greatest idea right now.  But thank you, seriously.  I appreciate it.”  Lance took the cup, savoring the warmth between his hands as he sank to the floor by the mirror.  Keith followed suit, folding himself a little awkwardly so he didn’t spill his coffee.  Lance saw Keith’s eyes land on his shaking fingers and quickly moved to put the coffee down so he could sit on his hands.

 “Are you…okay?”  Keith wouldn’t look at him, but he sounded almost concerned.  That was weird, coming from the guy who clammed up when he was asked anything more serious than his favorite color.  (Red.  Everything was red—the phone case, the motorcycle, and the pens he used to doodle on his napkins at the café.  It suited him, the little hothead.)

 “Lance?”  Right.  Keith was talking to him still, raising his eyebrows as Lance tried to settle himself.  It was really hard, and he found himself fiddling with the grain on the handle of the mop instead of looking at his partner.  

“I’m fine.  Just, you know, practicing my moves.”  Shit.  He sounded too casual.  Lance waited for Keith to bawl him out for not taking this seriously, but instead he watched as Keith puffed his cheeks out, sinking back against the mirror in a slouch.  

 “You ready for tomorrow?”  

  “Totally good, amigo.  No problems here.”  Against his better judgement, Lance took a sip of coffee.  It was really good—perfect, actually.  He didn’t know Keith had been paying that much attention.  

 “That makes one of us.  I think Montgomery is going to throw her toe shoes at me when she sees what I came up with.”

 “Dude, are you serious?  You’re going to do great, you always do.  You advanced in ballet faster than I did, and I’ve been doing it since I was five.”

 Keith’s cheeks reddened, and he tucked his chin.  “The routine is really piecemeal right now, things have been crazy at work and I haven’t had much time outside our sessions to work on it.”

 Finally, something to focus on.  “Do you have to work tonight?”

 “Not for another hour or so,” Keith said, picking at the end of his shoelace.  Lance sat back and gestured at the empty dance floor.

 “Well, take off your nasty shoes and show me what you’ve got.”  Keith opened his mouth, probably to defend his shoes, but Lance looked pointedly at the mop in his lap.  

 “I just cleaned.  No socks, no boogie.”  

 Keith groaned, but he was already pulling off his sneakers.  “ _ Boogie?   _ Seriously, what nineties movie did you escape from?”

 “I don’t know, but someone is missing their dashing romantic lead.”  Lance waggled his eyebrows as Keith plugged his phone into the sound system.  The lights were still off, but the sunset light coming through the windows highlighted every shadow when Keith turned to face Lance, and his eyes flashed when the first notes came over the speakers.  

 Keith didn’t bother with the usual grace that Lance had had hammered into him from day one.  Ballet was meant to be smooth, several movements blended to look like something fluid.  Keith’s ballet wasn’t exactly angry, but it was forceful.  He was all tight lines and hard movements, even as he seemed to forget Lance was watching.  At least he remembered to point his toes.  But something was off, the song he had chosen seemed to have a different message than the hard curves of muscle that kept popping too obviously for ballet.  The song was short, but Lance was already hitting the replay button.

 Time for some payback.  

He slid in behind Keith, who had already restarted—albeit nervously.  Biting his lip, Lance put his hands over the other boy’s hips.  

 “Settle those things, would you?”  he said, trying to keep things light.  “You have to communicate the message in the song.  Keep moving, okay?  I can keep up.”

 It took Lance a second to remember some of the beginning moves, but he ghosted along behind Keith the way he had seen Montgomery do when she was correcting his form.  He let his hands slip over Keith’s every once in a while, guiding the harsh pull of Keith’s movements into something softer.  Keith resisted, jumpy as ever, and Lance sighed.  

 “It’s a love song.  You can’t just force it—here, watch this.”

 Lance moved across to face him so that he could be Keith’s mirror.  Just as Keith pushed his torso into an arc, Lance swept into what was almost a bow.  Their eyes locked, and Lance felt his stomach seize.  Where Keith pulled his legs up sharply, Lance bent like a reed and pushed himself into a waltz step.  When they spun, it was in tandem—like planets, like a record they both knew all the words to.  Keith’s dancing was softening a little as he watched Lance, but he wasn’t really paying much attention.  The light was fading and the piano of the song was moving with them and Keith’s eyes were on his and before he knew it he was spinning in to take Keith’s hands like a duet partner.  

 Mirrors weren’t supposed to move, but Keith softened even more as they both pushed in.  They came together legs to hips to nose, until Lance was too close to see anything but the color of his eyes.  They were half closed, Keith’s head falling back a little to expose his neck, trusting Lance with his weight as they spun in a move that Lance had only ever seen in films.  

 He’d dreamed about dancing with someone like this, but for years it had just been him and a ghost partners, imagining some other half, performing in professional shows.  He knew both parts of the Sleeping Beauty duets, the delicate pointe of the lead and the brash power of the prince—but this was something else entirely.  This was both of them, and Lance held something real between his hands.  On impulse, he leaned forward into a dip, feeling Keith’s leg come up behind him in an easy counterbalance.  

 The music had stopped.  The song ended like a question mark.  

_ Holy shit.   _ Keith nodded breathlessly, staring up at him with wonder, and Lance realized that he had said the words out loud.  It was awkward.  God, he hadn’t wanted to make it awkward.  He pulled Keith back into a standing position and got ready to shrug off the whole performance as a training exercise, something meant to let Keith feel the movement in the song.  Keith stopped him before he could.

 “Was that a new teaching method?”  Did he want Lance to say yes?  No?  Keith had pulled back into himself, jaw steady now that the dancing had stopped and Lance was a few feet away.  

 No, it wasn’t part of the training.  No, Lance wasn’t going to admit that in a million years.  He wasn’t falling for the boy who had dark bangs in his eyes and looked like he had his heart in his throat.

He wasn’t.  He  _ wasn’t. _

Fuck.

“It’s okay.  If it was, I mean.”  Keith’s voice was quiet as he picked up his phone, but it clearly wasn’t okay.  

 “It wasn’t,” Lance said, voice just as soft.  Keith’s eyes snapped up, all the movement from his side of the room suspended.  Lance hated this feeling, not knowing whether Keith wanted this or not.  How could he ask?  It could just make things worse.  Right now the air in the room was like a feather on a knife blade: easy to break, easy to let fall.  “I’m sorry if that’s weird.  We can talk to Montgomery about finding other partners—“

 The tension was shattered by an alarm coming from Keith’s phone, and they both jumped as it came over the speakers.    

 “Oh, shit.  I’m going to be late for work.  I have to get ready.”  The coffee by the mirror had gone cold, and Keith hurried over to where his duffel bag was still piled in a heap.  He was pulling on his shoes like the building was on fire, and Lance was still standing there like…well, like an idiot.  Keith turned around to look at him quickly and then started digging in the side pocket of his bag.

 “Hang on.”  Oh God, there he went, pulling on his jacket and sweeping up the duffel bag under one arm.  

 But instead of running out he pulled out a pen and barreled towards Lance.  With a nervous glance up underneath his bangs, he pulled Lance’s hand towards him and scribbled something on his palm.  

 “I hope this is okay?  I get off late, but can I meet you for coffee before classes?  I think we have a lot to talk about.”  He slid back towards the door, almost knocking over one coffee cup and then stumbling backwards over the other one.  He only had one shoe on and his hair was a ruffled mess that he was trying to push back with one hand, but the grin he tossed over his shoulder made Lance melt a little.  Keith went out the door fast enough to make the curtains sway in the wind behind him, leaving Lance in the blue light just past sunset.  He had a crooked phone number on one hand, and the damned mop in the other.  The words wouldn’t come out and there was coffee on the floor, but Lance was smiling like he’d just won a spot on Broadway.  

 Finally, the bubble in his throat broke.

 His whoop echoed all the way down the hallway.

**

 Keith would break his neck if he went down the stairs any faster.  His whole body was warm enough to ignore the temperature—he was sweating under his t-shirt even though the cold was cutting through his pants.  He hated to leave Lance hanging like that, after a dance that made him question everything.  

 He’d have to explain.  He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little relieved by the distraction after Lance had pulled him in like that.  He had wanted to kiss him so bad, practically drowning in those blue eyes while the last chord echoed in his ears.  In short?  It had been one of the most intense dances of his life.  And that was including the ones where he was practically naked.  

 He should have been able to deal with this.  Lately, it felt like he couldn’t deal with anything—not the competition or the new security measures at work or the six papers that were due before the end of next month.  He had been pinched and prodded and mocked at work by guys that were bigger than two of him, coming home at two or three in the morning just to get up at seven the next day.  He could barely deal with Shiro’s light joking when he’d burned breakfast a few days ago.  Shiro had been quieter, withdrawing to his room to work on his senior project with a kind of half-hearted defiance.  The pressure was building up on every side, and if Keith didn’t figure out some way to balance it all then he was sure everything was going to come crashing down around his ears.  Adding romance to that was just asking for trouble.

 The logical part of his brain was saying that it would be a better idea not to act on this, to go to Montgomery and explain that the pressure was just too much, that maybe he’d have to take some time off while everything settled down.  If someone got hurt while Keith was distracted, if the Galra knew about anything that was important to him, they would use it as leverage.  He’d see them use family and friends as bargaining chips with other dancers—to barter them into working or bully them into silence.  

 Keith hadn’t really considered it an issue before.  He hadn’t had friends, really.  Family had been out of the question since he’d been kicked out of his last foster home.  Before this semester, Shiro was the closest thing he had to any of those things—but now he knew Lance and all of his friends.  Matt and Allura.  Pidge.  Hunk.  Shay.  People who were starting to feel like an extension of his life, something Keith could look forward to.   

 All people that could get hurt if anyone found out.  

 He should protect them, he knew that.  It would be safest to cut them all off and start over somewhere where nobody would be in danger.  But damn if he didn’t want to pull Lance onto the back of his bike and see how far they could get on a tank of gas.

 Jesus, when had life gotten so complicated?

 With a growl, he took off towards the apartment.

**

Matt was playing sugar football on top of the piano, but nobody really seemed to mind.

 Shiro and Allura were working their way through a Beethoven sonata for cello and piano, the piece moving along easily despite the complicated rhythms.  They would both be up for senior showcase next week, and as the prodigies at Arus, everyone was expecting something spectacular.  They had been working on the piece as a pet project for months, but it was really coming along.  They zipped along in careful synchronization, their notes harmonizing and echoing in the hall as Matt leaned over the back half of the piano.  Shiro was moving along brightly, not so lost in the music as he usually was.  Instead, he was watching Allura carefully for cues.

 Which of course meant that Matt was duty-bound to pull faces and distract him.

A note stammered as Shiro caught sight of Matt’s fish face, and Allura shot him a dirty look over the top of the piano.  To his credit, Shiro recovered gracefully, using a suspended note to stick his tongue out at Matt.  

 Damn the easygoing musician.  He’d have to try harder.  Matt flicked a sugar packet too hard and it landed on the keys—Allura responded by playing louder, smacking the sugar packet to the ground as the final note run hammered down the keys and the last chords rang out.  Matt clapped wildly.

 “Bravo!  You’ve survived the ultimate distraction—after that you two won’t have any trouble at all.”

 Allura’s expression was flat as she threw the sugar packet back at him.  It bounced off his nose, making his whole face wrinkle.  

 “Hey, I’m only trying to help—you could just say thank you.”

“I’ll  _ thank _ you to keep off my instrument and refrain from throwing condiments on stage.”  

 Matt gave a cheesy grin, showing off his teeth as Allura moved to gather her sheet music.  However, there was a voice that was missing from the usual banter.  Allura shot him a pointed look, gesturing toward Shiro with her chin.   _ Go on.   _

 “Well, I’m meant to meet Father for a musical revue uptown.  Shouldn’t be late—I’ll tell you how it goes?”

 “But of course,” Matt said, sweeping into a bow.  “Enjoy your froofy opera, princess.”

 “Operetta!”  She sang as she left through the double doors, holding both thumbs up in the air as she went.  Matt rolled his eyes and turned to Shiro, who was staring down at his cello like he couldn’t quite remember how exactly it was supposed to work.

 “Hey, Spaceman—if you’re trying to use the Force, let me know.  It usually just ends up giving me a headache.”

 “Hm?  Oh, yeah.”  Shiro murmured, giving a distracted nod.  Matt waved a hand, plunking himself down on the piano bench across from Shiro with a  _ clack _ .  Matt stretched his legs out, plunking forward with his chin on his fists.

 “Earth to Shirogane.  Come in, cadet, this is ground control.”

 When Shiro finally met Matt’s gaze, he leaned forward to examine the cellist’s face.  “Hey, whoa.  Have you been sleeping?  You’d have to check those bags on an airline.”

 Shiro gave a half smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.  “Just been thinking too much, that’s all.”

 “Is it your dad?  ‘Cause I’ll fight him if you find me a Denny’s parking lot.  Hell, I’ll fight him at an IHOP if you really want to make some waves.  I might have chicken legs, but I’m ready to rumble.”

 “You’re always ready to rumble,” Shiro said.  “I just wish you didn’t have to.”

 “Hey, come on.  What’s wrong?”  Matt scooched closer, dragging the bench with him as he went.  Shiro put his face in his hands.  The fact that anyone could look so pretty and so miserable at the same time was worse than unfair, but Shiro looked absolutely ragged.  He had deep purple under his eyes and his bangs were shoved up over his forehead like he’d been messing with them all night.  

 “I have an interview tomorrow at the firm.  It’s an internship, but Dad is hell-bent on getting me into the business.”

 “Okay?  How is this different from every other time he’s tried to get you to quit cello because ‘the arts aren’t profitable’?”

 Shiro scrubbed his hands over his eyes, sighing as he went.  “Because I’m starting to think he’s right, Matt.”

 Well.  That was a curveball.  “What?”

“I got into music as an extracurricular.  I came to Arus to become a professional, against every bit of advice I got.  I know Alfor is willing to hire me, and I might be able to get an audition after I graduate—but what if I really wasn’t meant to do this?  I’ve been trying to compose my final piece for weeks.  I have twenty-three notes, Matt.  Twenty three notes that I’m not even sure go together.”  

 Shiro barked out a laugh at that, and it echoed weirdly in the auditorium.  “Maybe they were all right.  Maybe I was just obsessed and I’ve been tricking myself into thinking this is where I’m supposed to be.”

 Matt held up his hands.  “Whoa.  Tap the brakes there, buckaroo.  That’s what this is about?”

 The piano bench would no longer suffice.  Matt moved to kneel next to the chair and reached out to put a hand on Shiro’s knee.

 “Shiro.”  Shiro looked at the stage curtains, at the scuff marks on the tips of his shoes, anywhere but Matt’s face.  Matt cleared his throat.  

 “Takashi.”  That got his attention, and Matt bit his lip before continuing.  “Would I ever lie to you?  About something other than Game of Thrones spoilers?”

 A pause.  The smallest of smiles.  “Not that I know of.”

 “Arus doesn’t just take students because they show up.  You had to audition like everyone else—I was there, remember?  That was back before you were a beefcake,” he said, poking Shiro’s bicep.  “I think your cello case was bigger than you.”

 “At least I grew out of it,” Shiro shot back.  “I could probably still fit you inside this thing.”

 “Ouch.  After all we’ve been through, I’m trying to give you a pep talk and you belittle me?  Wow—talk about family honor.”

 Shiro rolled his eyes, but he let Matt continue.  

 “As I was  _ saying _ , you came up here that day and plopped down in that rickety little chair.  Let me set the scene here: you, tiny freshman, staring down Alfor like he was going to throw a tomato in your face.  I was sitting riiight—“

Matt hopped down off the stage, found a fourth row seat smack dab center stage.  “Here.”

 Shiro’s eyebrow quirked.  “Okay, now that we’ve established where everyone was sitting?”

 “The most important part begins.  Let me take you on a journey, Shiro.  I’m an artist—don’t rush the process.”

 Shiro rolled his eyes.  “We only have so much time before they lock the building.”

 “Patience, young padawan.  I do have a point here.  Okay, so you’re up there shaking like a leaf and we’re all down here waiting to hear the thousandth rendition of Bach’s Cello Suite in G Major.”

 Shiro groaned, but Matt only grinned as he continued.  “Exactly.  But instead of doing any of that, this tiny kid from Brooklyn starts sawing on his cello with something we’ve never heard before.”

 “The Ligeti sonata.”  Shiro’s fingers ghosted down the neck of the cello as he remembered the piece, something Matt had seen him do a hundred times before during rehearsal.  It still gave him goosebumps.

 “Exactly.  So you are crashing through this Hungarian piece at an insane speed, like there’s nobody else in the room, like you’re going to set your cello on fire with the friction.  Every single thing that was going on down here stopped.  The entire table of directors were sitting there with their mouths open and you looked like you didn’t have a care in the world.  You had this look on your face like the music was taking you somewhere only you could see—but you took all of us with you.”

**

 Three minutes and forty five seconds.

 The Ligeti piece always reminded Shiro of the time that he had gone whitewater rafting at summer camp—it raced along almost too fast to keep up with.  When he rehearsed it, it made his arms hurt and his heart go faster than it was supposed to.  

 The adrenaline up on stage was worse than any other time he’d performed—but it was hard to shake and play at the same time.  

_  You have to pick one _ , Shiro said to himself.  He’d been lying to his dad, pretending to go to math tutoring to squeeze in extra sessions with his music teacher.  He flubbed a note when he thought about what would happen when his father found out about all this.  The pitch slid the wrong way, and Shiro tried to jump his bow back into the proper position.  There were note runs coming up in the next few measures that he’d only been able to nail twice in the last few rehearsals.

 He pushed his frustration out during the bridge, the notes coming together like a door slamming as the pitch rose.  He was breathing too fast.  There were so many eyes on him.  The lights were too hot up here and his suit jacket was starting to feel like sandpaper at the elbows.

 When he had panicked at rehearsal last night, this was where the piece fell apart.  Florona had put a strong hand on his shoulder, her eyes drilling into his as he swallowed hard.

 “You’re overthinking this, Takashi.  That pause, there?  That’s for you to take a breath.  Gather yourself.  This is Ligeti’s Post-it note to the cellist: check your tempo.  Strong pizzicato, just to slow it down.  Then push forward.”

 Play.  Just play.

 Shiro closed his eyes.  He plucked.  The pitch slid down, the right way this time, and Shiro could breathe.

 The music began again, the repeat of the opening theme ringing out around him as it climbed back up.  With his eyes shut like this, it made perfect sense: Shiro could see the colors in the notes where they connected.  There were perfect echoes in the way they talked to each other, the brilliance moving through him all the way to where his fingers pushed each note into existence.  He wasn’t worried about messing up now, the music was in him and around him, the rickety little folding chair beneath him trembling with the force as he sawed like he was trying to fell a tree.  

 A breath in the wrong direction and it would fall.  But Shiro could feel every twitch of the metal and the wood beneath his fingers.  The cello came to life when it was with him.  He  _ knew  _ this like his own skin, like the calluses that had built up like armor on his fingertips.  He soared past the final note run.  He was still sweating, but now it was with the strain of pushing himself to the highest note like a marathon runner.

 This wasn’t falling, it was floating.  Shiro had never been exactly what you’d call graceful outside of rehearsal, but he held the final high note for just a fraction of a second longer.  The last notes were like rolling downhill into a pile of pillows, in sound as well as the rush of relief.  It was over.  

And Shiro had fallen in love.

**

 Shiro opened his eyes to a dark auditorium.  Matt was still standing there in the fourth row with the stage lights reflecting off his glasses.  It hid his eyes when he finally spoke again.

 “Look, I’m not going to tell you what to do, you get enough of that from your dad.  I just want you to think about what all this meant to that kid who played the Ligeti like he was on fire.  If you don’t feel like that anymore, then you can walk out of this.  I’ll support you either way.  But if you have a shred of that passion left in you somewhere, even though it’s not easy, now’s the time to find it.”

 “It’s not that simple—” Shiro started, but Matt cut him off.

 “The answer’s yes or no, Takashi.  Do you love it?”

 Matt—goofy, cheerful Matt that had been flicking condiments at his less than twenty minutes ago—looked more serious than Shiro had ever seen him.  It might have been the look in his eye that made Shiro say the words with such conviction.

 “Of course I do.”  Shiro lifted his chin and looked at the worn bow that he was still holding, his fingerprints practically burned into the varnish from years of practice.  Matt nodded like this had been the right answer.

 “Then you’re going to have to fight for it.”

**

 Shiro was used to getting home before Keith, but something tonight felt...off.

 He’d gone to work out after his talk with Matt, trying to exhaust himself enough for his mind to stop racing.  He hadn’t finished at the gym until almost midnight, showering off with the last of the stragglers from the late-night boxers club.  He didn’t bother with his jacket on the walk home—it was a short, and the cold felt amazing biting into his shoulders.  The apartment was dark when he pushed in, the kitchen cold and both bedroom doors firmly shut against the chill.  Shiro messed with the heating dial on the wall, flipping on the cabinet radio as he pulled out a cup of noodles.  The latest cooking disasters had convinced Keith to put sticky notes all over the stove.  

 Lined up meticulously, they read ‘NO’.

 Shiro grinned and shook his head, reaching over to turn the kettle on.  His cooking skills were limited to frying eggs and cooking macaroni, and even then there was the occasional flambé.   Keith wasn’t much better.  Needless to say, most of the monthly food budget went towards takeout and raw vegetables so they didn’t pickle themselves before graduation.  

 He snapped off a bite of carrot as he poured water into his cup of noodles, bopping along to the pop song coming over the radio.  The doorknob rattled, making him jump and spill hot water over the edge of the counter.  He yelped when some of it ran onto his foot, and as he reached down to take off his soaked sock he heard Keith thud into the front entrance. He must have been coming off a bad shift, his footsteps sounding heavier than usual.

 “Warn a guy, would you?  I think my big toe just got hard-boiled.”

 Standing up with his dripping sock in hand, Shiro’s mouth fell open.  Keith was standing in the living room, sandwiched between two guys that probably could have smashed most of the boxing club like they were pressing flowers.  One of them had a badge strapped to his belt, the seal of the NYPD glinting in the light from the kitchen.  Keith wouldn’t meet Shiro’s eyes, but his nose was bloody and his left eye was almost swollen shut.  Shiro was across the room in two strides, pulling Keith away from the officers and behind him in one fluid move.  The noodles were completely forgotten as Shiro looked darkly at the two men across from them.

When he finally spoke his voice was low, a dangerous rumble that made the officers glance at each other nervously.

 “Would someone like to explain what’s going on?”

  It wasn't a request.


	7. Intervals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Keith deal with the fallout, and Lance deals with waiting. Neither of these things go particularly well.

  The whole world was a jumble of hot and cold. 

  The frozen peas pressed to the warm swelling on Keith’s face, the mug of tea in his hand that somehow still wouldn’t thaw his shaking fingers.  The icy glint of Antok’s police badge.  The warmth of Shiro pressed into his side.

  Things were moving like they were underwater, his face was throbbing in time with every word coming out of the officer’s mouth.  He was huge, built like a brick wall and still gripping Keith’s sleeve.  His partner—Kolivan, Keith remembered—nodded along, interrupting only occasionally to add details.  They were explaining the bar fight they had pulled Keith out of, the one that he had been _winning_ before the cops had showed, and Shiro was nodding along seriously. 

  They weren’t exactly brimming with accuracy on the minor details, but it was clear they’d been around to see the one of the cheekier Galra twist his arm up during the dance he paid for.  It hadn’t really been a conscious decision to backhand the guy—but Keith’s reflexes hadn’t really come up in the heated discussion that followed.  He’d been hauled off to the alleyway behind the club, fighting them for every inch. 

  Needless to say, he’d lost.

  Keith didn’t have to see Shiro’s face to know the expression: eyebrows drawn together, mouth a flat and disappointed line.  It was the bad decisions face, the one that came out every time Keith pulled an all-nighter or overdosed on caffeine or forgot to stretch and pulled something. 

  Or when he got himself beaten to a pulp outside a Galra bar.

  There was a sharp sting on the side of his face, and when he jerked away from the touch the room came back into focus.  Shiro had one hand frozen an inch away from Keith’s cheek, holding the bag of peas in a careful grip as he tried to tug them out of Keith’s hand.  Shaking himself, Keith finally had the sense of mind to let go. 

  Kolivan and Antok were staring at him almost quizzically, and he was too tired to bite back the exhausted growl that came out of his mouth.

  “ _What.”_  

  “We were asking if you would be comfortable going back in to the Galra…environment, as an operative.  Given that Thace has gone radio silent, we have a great need of an agent on the inside.  Normally we wouldn’t ask this of a civilian—but we would keep you under close surveillance, you would only be required to provide basic information on the happenings of the club.  Common visitors, possible threats.”

  Shiro jumped in first.  “Whoa, hold on.  You’re asking him to go _back_ after this?”

  “Shiro, its fine.”  Keith tried to grab for the peas again, before Shiro could pop the bag.  Shiro leaned forward, the tense muscles in his arms looking like they’d been built by something other than sawing on a cello.

  “Keith, you look like you got put through a blender.  This is definitely not the first time things have gone sour in the club, but this is the first time things have gotten so physical.”

  “The Blades would have my back.”  It was flimsy, Keith knew, to trust these officers that had just slid in to save him when he was getting whaled on.  But they _had_ swooped in.  And after tonight, Keith was looking at every chance he had to fight against the Galra—if espionage was the first chance he had at revenge, he was going to take it.

  Shiro stared at him like Keith had said he was going to take out the entire gang by himself.  “Keith, I know you’re upset right now, but this is dangerous.  You could be killed.”

  He looked desperately to Antok and Kolivan, who both shifted uncomfortably.  “Wouldn’t it be smarter for him to just get out?  Go into hiding for a few months?”

  Kolivan grimaced.  “It is a difficult situation.  The Galra are on high alert due to the recent busts—if Mr. Kogane disappeared, it would not go unnoticed.  There would be retribution.  It is ultimately up to him.  Regardless of his decision, we will provide whatever protection we can.”

    Keith looked Antok in the eyes—the guy was big enough to fill a doorway, but his face had a kind of grizzled kindness that was nice enough, if you could get past all the scars. 

  “I want to do this.”  Keith tried hard not to look at Shiro, but in his peripheral vision he saw his roommate’s jaw grit down hard.  “I’ll do it.”

  Kolivan nodded.  “It is appreciated.”

  He turned and looked down at Shiro.  “If you wish to be removed from the situation, we can provide aid.”

  Shiro swallowed hard, shoving a hand up through his bangs.  “I’m sticking with Keith.  I’d rather be here if he needs me—I don’t have a lot of experience, but I can fight if it comes down to that.”

  The look Kolivan and Antok shared had a distinct flavor of surprise, but Antok nodded.  “We are with you if it comes to that.  You won’t be the first to fall under this kind of protection, but if we’re needed we can be here within a matter of minutes.”

  Kolivan stretched out a hand, a crumpled business card between his fingers.  Keith took it, fingering the purple lettering as he looked back up at the tight black jacket, the monstrous build.  He still had questions, but one was shoving to the forefront of everything else.

  “I know you explained why you’ve been watching, but I want to know.  Why this, now?  Why me?” 

  Antok sighed.  “Kolivan—”

  Kolivan held up a hand.  “He deserves to know, Antok.  He’s been on the list for years, he may as well know why.”

  Shiro’s hand came up in a protective cuff over Keith’s shoulder.  “List?”

  Kolivan nodded, a sharp jerk of the chin that made his braid fall down over his shoulder.  “Yes.  There are several protocols in place to protect those who have connections to the Blades and their affiliates—if their names or locations come up in transmissions, we dispatch as a precaution.  The list is extensive, and it covers many generations of our organization.”

  “Why would I be on a list of Blade affiliates?”

  Antok was starting to look like he wanted to sink back through the couch.  “Thace was admittedly quite surprised when you showed up in a Galra strip club.  We’ve heard your name before, Mr. Kogane.  Your mother was a Blade.”

**

  There was still a melting bag of peas on the table three hours later.

  It was late, the clock ticking away in the greenish light of the kitchen.  The city had quieted, or at least the block, and Shiro was slowly packing together the first aid kit.  Keith had been a mess—mostly cuts and bruises, but one of the Galra had scored a pretty good slice to his shoulder.  Bandaging things had at least given Shiro something to focus on while Keith stared stoically out the kitchen window. 

  He was determined not to talk, keeping his answers clipped as Shiro worked his way over the battered edge of Keith’s jaw.  He’d talk when he was ready—he always did, and pushing did nothing to speed the process—but that didn’t mean Shiro was having an easy time waiting it out.  The silence had built to an uncomfortable buzz when Keith finally broke.

  “I know you think this is a bad idea.”

  Shiro dabbed alcohol over the cut on Keith’s lip, an apologizing hum in his throat when Keith hissed and flinched back.  “Like they said, it was your choice.  I’m here for you, buddy.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried— _really_ worried—but I would rather go through this with you than watch from the sidelines.”

  “Thanks.”  It was tight, but Shiro grinned anyway. 

  “Besides, who’s going to keep you from going native during your big mission?”

  “Shiro.”

  “Sorry.  Just trying to lighten the mood.”  Yeah, he’d definitely been spending too much time around Matt.  Shiro stuck a butterfly bandage over an edge of the slice on Keith’s shoulder, smoothing over it as Keith’s breath hitched again.  “Seriously, how are you doing?”

  “I’ll be fine, Shiro.  I’m just…processing.”  No surprise there—Keith’s mom had disappeared a little while after he was born, and his dad had succumbed to cancer just a few years later.  This new development had a lot of implications: why she’d disappeared, if she was even still alive.  Shiro could see Keith thinking too hard, but if he pushed he knew it wouldn’t go well.  They were on thin ice as it was—no need to pry into things if they’d come out eventually.  Keith wasn’t a shrinking violet when it came to expressing himself, it was just all too often that he thought with his fists instead of his head.  The rest of their little medical session had been pretty silent, with the occasional yelp from Keith as Shiro hit a tender spot.

  After that, Keith had gone to change, leaving Shiro by himself.  His noodles were still on the counter, long since having congealed into a weird puddle of mush, and Shiro swept them into the trash along with the bandage wrappers.  He jumped when the fridge motor started humming, his spine itching at the sudden noise. 

  Well, this was going to be a fun evening.  He glanced at the clock, raising his eyebrows at the time.  A fun morning, rather.

  Shiro blew out a huge breath and sank into one of the kitchen chair, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.  This whole evening (morning, whatever) had gone about as well as being hit by a truck.  Couldn’t Keith have been into motocross or cage fighting or serial killing?  Something containable?

  There was a small noise from the doorway to the kitchen, footfalls that were almost silent but made Shiro jolt anyway.  Speaking of Keith.  He wasn’t really standing—most of his weight was leaned against edge of the doorframe, and even that didn’t look like it was holding him up all the way.  The sagging exhaustion, combined with the huge t-shirt he was wearing, made him look about ten times younger than he really should. 

  “Everything okay?”  It was already out of his mouth before Shiro realized what a stupid question that was. 

  Keith looked at his feet.  “I’m not sleeping, are you?”

  Oh.  _Oh._ Despite the ridiculous amounts of pain meds Shiro had forced into him, Keith was probably going to be restless all night—in all the years Shiro had known him, Keith was never good at dealing with the aftermath of serious fights.  He hadn’t asked out of respect, but years of sketchy foster homes and stints in the local juvenile detention center did most of the talking for him.  Freshman year Keith had practically collapsed after staying up for a week to avoid waking Shiro. When he finally slept, there had been nightmares. Horrible ones. 

  They’d had a talk after that, but getting Keith to talk about feelings without a lead-up was akin to pulling out fingernails.  Getting him to ask for help straight out was about ten times worse.  Shiro sat up, rubbing at his face.  Who was he kidding—he probably wasn’t sleeping either.

  “Honestly?  No.”  Shiro pushed himself up, plucking at Keith’s shirtsleeve as he headed for his room.  “Come on, I have Star Trek on my laptop.”

  Keith wrinkled his nose.  “Next Gen?”

  It was probably in bad taste to cackle, but Shiro did it anyway.  “Original series all the way, kiddo.  You know better.”

  Keith’s groan was only half joking, but it was nice to see him smiling anyway. 

**

  He didn’t even make it all the way through the first episode.  Shiro was still too keyed up to relax, but he turned the volume down and then turned to check on Keith.  He was clearly exhausted—this was definitely not the first late night he’d had recently, judging by the dark smudges under his eyes.  Keith was slumped against the headboard, chin to chest and arms crossed around his waist where they had been folded earlier.  He was completely out, listing over so far his forehead was resting against Shiro’s shoulder.  With a careful twist, Shiro maneuvered out from under him, yanking the blanket over Keith’s legs.  He stirred with a grumble when Shiro shifted, and Shiro froze for fear of waking him. Finally, Keith settled enough for Shiro to ease him down into a position that wouldn't kill his neck. Once his head was on the pillow, Keith dug his face in with a shuddering sigh and went limp again.

  Shiro looked down at him, ridiculously rumpled and crunched up like he was protecting his stomach from something Shiro couldn’t see.  He’d learned a long time ago that there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do for each other—taking care of illicit hangovers, attending concerts and recitals and endless family functions to cover for each other.  They were brothers, no question about it.  Seven years of friendship would do that to you.  Still, peering down at the skinny kid tangled in his sheets Shiro couldn’t help but wonder just how far they were going to have to go for each other. 

  He’d keep him safe, even if he had to beat the Galra off with his cello and his skinny senior portfolio.

Keith had passed out before he could hear his phone’s frantic buzzing, but Shiro figured that whatever it was could wait until morning.  He settled back down next to Keith, laptop balanced on his stomach as he sank into a comfortable doze.

  The phone kept ringing.

**

Once again, Lance wondered if six texts was too many. 

It wasn’t like he was asking the same thing, and he hadn’t sent them all at once.  He had been fiddling with his chemistry homework for hours at the café, picking at a scone while the foam on his latte sank into the cup.  Hunk had kicked him out of the living room after his pacing had resulted in a whole canister of craft sequins upended on the carpet (the living room wasn’t big enough for productive pacing, anyway) and he’d had nothing to do except scroll through his laptop, pretending to work at the chemical equations that were due the next day. 

  But Lance couldn’t focus, and at least at the café no one was bothered by his pencils drumming on the edge of the table.  He snuck a peek at his phone again, the screen lighting up to show only the bright background picture of he and Hunk and the beach.  With a sour groan, Lance thunked his head on the table and closed his eyes.  He sat there for a second, listening to the slow song coming over the speaker.  He was tempted to tap out a beat, listening to the lyrics about a cinnamon summer floating over the last of the evening’s customers.  The beat pushed up against his eardrums, soft and heavy, before he realized it was a love song.

Because of course it was. 

He heard a soft _whump_ across the table as someone sat down, and he didn’t even have to raise his head to know who it was.

  “Hi, Shay.”  She had been looking over at the table for a good hour and a half, but Shay was never one to jump into someone else’s space.  Lance leaned his cheek on the table and looked up at her, pushing his bangs out of the way.  Shay was looking down at him quizzically, an eyebrow hitched up to her hairline and a fist tucked firmly under her chin.  Her gaze darted from his face to the barely-eaten scone, eyes intent.

“You are not hungry?”

“Not really,” he shook his head, and her forehead creased with a worried frown.  She poked at the bread on the plate with a sad little sigh, pinky outstretched as she examined it with an expert eye.

“Truly, are the scones not well made today?” 

  Lance sat bolt upright at that.  “No, no!  The scones are great, I promise!  I’m just—waiting for something, I guess?  I’ve got a lot on my mind today.”

“Would you like to speak with me about it?”

“What about the customers?”  Lance asked.  Shay swept her arm in a wide circle, indicating the happy few clients all tucked into their respective corners with tablets and mugs of tea.  Lance sank into another slump on the table, ignoring the sticky spot on the hardwood as he reached for the plate.  He broke off a piece of scone, shaking off the crumbs before popping it into his mouth.  Just as he was starting to realize how hungry he’d been, his phone buzzed once against the table.

Lance nearly choked, jumping for the phone with both hands.  Shay jolted in surprise, her knees slamming into the bottom of the table hard enough to rattle the plate.  Lance was already sliding legs-first out of the booth, fumbling to put in his passcode as he stood up.  Shay raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down as she calmly stopped his coffee cup from plummeting to the floor. 

“I take it that this is what you were waiting for?”

Lance squinted at the screen, a message from Pidge glowing in his notifications, and he felt himself deflate like a leaky balloon.  His shoulders slumped.

“No.” 

  Seriously, what was it with Keith?  He was the one that had given Lance his number, had brought him a pumpkin latte—that was practically equivalent to a marriage proposal based on how he had acted before.  So what the hell was taking him so long?  He’d said he had to work, but that was nearly six hours ago.  It was almost one in the morning. 

He could be sleeping.  He could be dead. He could be— _Bzzt._

Lance opened the phone, barely daring to hope.  Pidge again.

Shay nudged the scone plate back towards him.  “Please eat.  You may stay past closing, and I won’t even make you wipe tables.” 

Lance shook his head no, shutting his laptop with a final click and sliding it into his bag.  Shay stood up with him, holding out an inviting arm.  Lance hugged her quickly, taking the scone from the plate behind her and trying to put on his usual charm. 

“See, it’s so good I’m going to have to take it with me.”  He managed a wink and a grin, but his manager only shook her head at him. 

“I hope you receive what you are waiting for.”

Lance left behind the warmth of the coffee shop with a wave back to Shay, holding his scone in his mouth as he tugged his jacket on.  Despite a few hints of warmth, the city wasn’t going to thaw out any time soon.  Lance shivered, pulling his shoulders forward as he avoided the frozen patches on the sidewalk.

Maybe Keith had slipped on some ice and gotten amnesia.  Maybe he was lying in a hospital somewhere waiting for Lance to swoop in like the prince from Sleeping Beauty.  Lance wasn’t sure about that one—the idea of kissing someone while they were sleeping had always kind of freaked him out.  Plus Keith seemed like the kind of guy who threw startled punches.  Laying one on him while he was unconscious would probably land Lance with at least a black eye. 

  He was so busy wincing at the mental image that he didn’t spot the shadows lurking at the mouth of the alleyway in front of him.  Later, he would think back and wonder if he had casual superpowers, thinking about a black eye only seconds before getting a real one.

  Now, though, he was blissfully oblivious to the Galra waiting for him.

**

  One of the best parts of the costume attic was the way it carried the sound. 

  Hunk liked the space to begin with—freshman year it had been a place where he could duck out of the way and panic in peace.  It was warm, well-lit with a cheerful yellow glow and exposed beams that made the whole place smell like sawdust.  Back at the beginning, he’d been sent up here to pull down a rack of scarves for a professor—errands were never a surprise when you were trustworthy and built like a tank—and he’d stepped up the stairs and immediately felt the dusty heat.  It was a nice change from down below, where the stage lights were off and the auditorium sat in cold silence.  It was kind of creepy down there, the stage empty and full of weird shadows cast by the set pieces.  So for a few years now, Hunk would fire up the flashlight on his phone and bolt up the back stairs, scuttling past the light booth and hopping up the ladder to the attic.  It was higher than he would have liked at first, but with the hum of the sewing machine he hooked up in the back corner and a few pilfered floor lamps the place had actually started to feel pretty homey. 

  Lance had been initiated freshman year, after a bad day Hunk had dragged him upstairs to talk in the quiet.  It became a nice little routine, actually, once Lance had stopped tripping over the light cords and plunging them into darkness.  Lance took to braiding a little rag rug while they sat up there, chattering away as his fingers worked along lines of scrap fabric with ridiculous speed.  It sat on top of the cords now in a thick heap, colors weirdly varied and sticking up where the scraps had to be tied together.  It was comfier than the plywood, though, and went kind of nicely with the wild rainbow of colors on the racks around it.  For a while, it was just their spot—a place to wind down after bombed tests or one of Lance’s many heartbreaks, a place where they could both collapse after finals and snack on the goodies Hunk kept stashed in the abandoned old tool cabinet.

  The goodies that kept mysteriously disappearing whenever Lance brought in scones.  Hunk had seen Pidge around, sure, headphones clamped over her ears and occasionally a shadow in the lighting booth as he flew past—but that didn’t stop he and Lance from shrieking and clinging to each other when they found her crunched into a corner in the dark.

  She had looked up at them both with half of a chocolate biscuit hanging out of her mouth, quirking an eyebrow at Lance—who quickly scrambled down from Hunk’s arms.  Offering to share the snacks on the books was a start along the way to actually being friends, and eventually Pidge scooted out of the darker corner to take advantage of Hunk’s electrical setup near the sewing machine.

  This, of course, had the added bonus of being closer to the food.

  Hunk liked having his friends up here—it made things cozy, sewing along while Pidge compiled mixes and Lance told outlandish stories to make the two of them laugh after a hard day.  However, being alone up here had its advantages.  He could tuck himself between the racks of leotards and Shakespearean ruffs, where the light was best, and just work at whatever he wanted to.  Right now, he was working along a line of buttons on a Victorian jacket, small repairs before the theatre needed to start rooting through the racks for their show.  He had a list a mile long at the moment: patching cuffs and collars, cataloguing the new donations backstage, seeing where the hell all of his pincushions had gotten to over the break, but right now he was able to focus in on attaching the button under his fingers. 

  Everyone had pretty much gone home, escaping out into the cold to go find coffee before the weekend officially began—Lance had wanted to walk home with Hunk after everything that had happened last night—so Hunk was waiting out the last bit of rehearsals.  Arus was pretty quiet on a Friday, the hum of the heating giving the pipes in the attic a comfortable rattle.

  At least, until the first note rang out from the stage.  Hunk jumped, nearly stabbing his finger in the process, and his knees hit the desk with enough force to send some of his pins to the floor.

  He knew without peeking through the struts that it had to be Shiro—he came in here a lot to practice, but Hunk never felt comfortable announcing himself.  He had too much work to do to just sneak off, and if Shiro was none the wiser about him being there then Hunk was happy to hide out upstairs until he left.

  His playing was really nice, to be honest—Hunk never minded a little music to work along with.  Usually he stuck to slower stuff, and whenever Hunk could sneak a peek down to the stage he could see the line forming between Shiro’s eyebrows, a strange tilt to his shoulders as he puzzled his way through a piece.  He never had any sheet music with him, and he left the hardcore stuff like scales for somewhere else.  On stage, his attention was everywhere except the instrument in front of him.  He seemed to play in a daze, only shaking himself out of his thoughts when Matt or Allura burst in through the door. 

  After that, Hunk would slip on his headphones, content not to eavesdrop.

  Today, though, the pace of the notes below was almost frantic.  The pensive tone was replaced by a piece that was a weird mix of quick runs and jarring slow sections.  It kind of sailed from one end of the spectrum to the other, heading all the way up and then back down in a series of loops that made Hunk peer down in concern.

  Buttons forgotten, he watched Shiro saw away at the strings with a reckless kind of force.  He was more stooped than usual, the muscles in his arms drawing tight as he pulled across the strings.  His hair was sticking up in wild spikes as he tore his way through measure after measure, and Hunk found himself staring down at the angry speed of Shiro’s hands.  The piece was haunting, and not just because Shiro looked a little possessed.

  Well.  This was…kind of unsettling.

  Hunk jumped when his phone buzzed in his pocket.  He pulled it out, squinting at the screen and thanking every deity he knows of that the volume hadn’t been turned up.  It was Lance, three separate photo messages waiting for Hunk.  In the latest one he looked pretty annoyed, his fresh black eye throwing off the balance in his otherwise awesome selfie. 

  “Practice is over,” he’d written across the picture.  In the last one, he’s shown full body in the barre mirror, highlighted in the otherwise-empty studio.  “Mullet absent.”

  Oh, yikes.  Double yikes, judging by the expression on Lance’s face.  Lance had been late this morning—Keith hadn’t shown up at the coffee shop, and there hadn’t been a peep from the guy all day.  Which was definitely a problem, because today was the big day, the show-professor-Montgomery-dances-for-the-preliminaries day. 

  Hunk was already planning stir fry for dinner, but if he could convince Lance to stop by the bodega on the way home he might be able to grab the stuff to make cream cookies.  It had been that kind of a week.

  Looking back down at the cellist on stage, Hunk scrunched up his nose.  Maybe he’d make some for Shiro.  He could leave them in his mailbox, maybe?  Shiro had been a TA in one of his Methods classes semesters back, but Hunk didn’t actually know the guy well enough to just hand him a package of cookies.

  He didn’t know Shiro well enough to just bolt downstairs and interrupt him, either—but judging by the look on Lance’s face, Hunk was definitely needed.  For moral support and a piggyback ride, if nothing else.  The back staircase was blocked by a pile of props at the moment, as the set teams catalogued pieces for use in shows during the semester—so Hunk really only had the choice of sneaking downstairs and trying to slip off the stage without Shiro noticing.  Not that that would be a crazy feat—Shiro seemed pretty engrossed in his own little world, there—but Hunk wasn’t exactly known for his stealth skills.

  He was holding his breath anyway as he snuck down the stairs by the light booth, trying not to let the metal clang too much underfoot as he struggled to find a balance between quick and quiet.  Most of his footfalls were covered by the sound of Shiro’s frantic note runs, but Hunk still paused once or twice when his shoes clipped the metal too sharply.  He made it backstage all right, trying to step outside the ring of lights on the stage.  Shiro had his eyes closed, still completely oblivious to the shadow trying (and failing) to sneak behind the curtain on the right of the stage. 

  It was going pretty well—at least until Hunk’s feet got tangled and sent him sprawling.  He hit the stairs, bouncing once, twice and landing hard at the bottom with a thud that rattled the floor.  He smacked his head so hard his vision sparked, and he rolled to a halt with a yelp, going face-first into the scratchy auditorium carpet.

  Hunk grumbled as he sat up, rubbing at the goose egg that was already forming.  He was afraid to look up—the music had screeched to a halt, and something up above him had clattered to the floor.  If Shiro hadn’t been paying attention before, he definitely was now. 

  There were hands on Hunk before he really knew what was going on, hauling him up to sit on one of the steps.  Hunk kept his eyes squeezed shut and wished really hard that he could just sink through the floor.  As usual, there was no such luck.

  “Are you okay?  That was quite a spill.”  He opened one eye to see Shiro kneeling in front of him, brows twisted in worry.  Hunk tried to scramble up, pulling back from Shiro’s grip as his face went red. 

  “Fine.  I—uh, I’m fine.  Not you.  You’re fine too, though!”

  Damn his mouth.

  Some smiting would be good right about now: lightning from the struts up above, a convenient pyre that he could throw himself on before he had a heart attack right here and now.  Again, no dice.  Shiro was grinning, though, as he helped Hunk to his feet.

  “Thank you for that,” Shiro said, clearly biting back a laugh.  “The only other person who gives me compliments like that is Matt, and I’m never sure if he’s teasing.”

  Oh no, he was _nice._ Hunk could deal with a quick escape if somebody was rude—he knew when to cut his losses, and later on the assholes usually just ignored him.  With Shiro standing there, though, looking concerned for him despite the fact that Hunk had just crashed into his practice time, it was hard to ignore the way he still looked a little upset.  And not just because Hunk had fallen over the edge of the stage.

  “Sorry.”  Shiro looked sheepish for some reason, scrubbing at the back of his neck as he went to pick up the bow he’d dropped onstage. “I guess I got pretty caught up, I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”

“No, that was all me, dude.  Trust me, I was trying to get out of here without bugging you.  Gravity just hates me.”

Shiro laughed.  “I know the feeling.  It’s Hunk, right?  I think you took Harris’ Methods class.”

Shit, could this get any more embarrassing?  Hunk felt his cheeks getting hot, and he ducked his head to gather up the spill of pens that had flown out of his bag.

“Yep, that’s me.”  Desperate for a subject change, Hunk looked at the sheaf of sheet music Shiro was gathering up and preparing to stuff in his bag.  “Hey, um—what was that first piece you were playing?  I was up in the costume attic when you came in, I thought it was really pretty.”

Now it was Shiro’s turn to flush, and it might have been a trick of the lights overhead but his face darkened a bit.  He ducked his head before Hunk could really get a read on his expression, though.

“It was nothing, just a little piece for my senior portfolio.”

“You _wrote_ that?”  Hunk actually stopped picking up pens to gape.  That piece had sounded like something that would play in a movie, or in a contemporary concert.  “Shiro, that was amazing!”

“It’s only eight measures,” Shiro said.  Hunk frowned, calculating.  Senior portfolio pieces were usually pretty far along by this point, but Hunk figured it wasn’t really his place to pry.

“Well, I can’t wait to hear the rest of it.”  It wasn’t a perfect response, judging by the way Shiro’s shoulders tilted awkwardly, but Hunk figured it was better than pushing the issue. 

“Thank you, Hunk.  That means a lot, right now.” 

  Hunk finished gathering up his scattered supplies, pulling up a fistful of design notes and shuffling them back into a pile that was neat-ish.  He really hoped he had everything—stuffing himself under a chair to get a design was not an option on the list of desirable activities.  He had to go help Lance, anyway.  His roommate was probably wondering just where the hell he was.

  Speaking of roommates.  Hunk turned before he could really think about what he was doing.

  “Hey, can I ask you a question?  You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” 

  Shiro’s eyebrows went up, but he nodded.  “Yes?”

  “I know you live with Keith—I haven’t seen him around, and I just want to make sure he’s okay?  I know stuff has been stressful lately, but he’s still got friends out here if he needs them.  Will you tell him?”

  Shiro grinned, and it was so warm Hunk had to look at his shoes.  “I’ll let him know, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it—it’s been a rough week.  I’m glad he has someone like you in his corner.”

  Jesus, what was he supposed to say to that?  Hunk was blushing, though it was thankfully hidden in the darkness of the theatre.  He stammered for a second, a handful of pens clutched in one fist and his jacket hem in the other.  He fiddled with both of them before he came up with an answer, openly grinning.

“Likewise.  See you, Shiro.”  Hunk grabbed his bag and bolted up the auditorium aisle, headed directly for where he knew Lance would be waiting. 

**

  Shiro watched Hunk head out the door like his tail was on fire, moving so fast Shiro watched for another couple of seconds just to make sure he didn’t fall over again in the hallway.  He really did hope the kid’s head was okay—he had seemed a little scrambled. 

  He’d gotten knocked out of his thoughts when Hunk fell out of the curtains, but that probably wasn’t such a bad thing.  Shiro’s thoughts hadn’t been all that conducive to practicing anything other than an extremely pissed-off rendition of Kodály’s Capriccio…which Shiro didn’t know all that well to begin with.

  Add last night’s insanity to the phone message Shiro had on his phone confirming the interview at his father’s company, and the fact that his eight measures had turned to seven after Montgomery had looked at his portfolio piece—well, as it turned out Keith wasn’t the only one having a rough week.

  He’d checked in about an hour ago, texting to make sure Keith was still alive.  He’d been sleeping like the dead when Shiro left this morning, still tangled in the blankets on the other side of the bed.  Just as they’d both expected, Keith had jolted awake a couple times last night.  It was nowhere near as bad as some of his night terrors when they’d first met, but Shiro had been too worried to really relax.

  Kolivan and Antok had left just as cryptically as they’d come, with a quick word to both of them that the Blades had their eyes on the Galra.  Kolivan had looked Shiro dead in the eyes last night and asked if he knew how to shoot a gun.

  _That_ had certainly been reassuring.

 They were watching the apartment, at least, which would hopefully keep Keith from doing anything too stupid while Shiro was out today—but both officers had paused when Shiro asked how they were going to protect Keith inside the school.  They were formulating a plan, they’d said, but Shiro didn’t like the iffy look they were giving each other.  This semester was shaping up to be so much longer than originally intended, and not in a good way.  Shiro grimaced when his dad’s ringtone echoed onstage.

He shoved his phone into the pocket of his cello case, sighing as he shouldered the instrument.

If the universe decided to keep this up, he was going to have to practice something a lot more distracting than Kodály.


End file.
